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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/27930709">Love &amp; Blowjobs &amp; Other Sacred Things</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/BrujaBanter/pseuds/BrujaBanter'>BrujaBanter</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>(This May Be A Bit Too Niche), Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Alternate Universe - Muggle, Anal Sex, Biracial Remus, Catholicism Is Inherently Kinky Fight Me, Dirty Talk, Evangelical Snape, Except Not That At All, Explicit Sexual Content, Genderqueer Character, Getting Together, Hijabi Lily, LDS/Mormon James, Like He Listens To A Lot Of Hillsong United, Like Spain Not Latin America, M/M, Megachurch Pastor Snape, More Like Agnostic James, Multi, Muslim Lily, No I Swear It Makes Sense, Okay Fine Former LDS/Mormon James, Oral Sex, Polyamory, Priest Kink, Priest Sirius, Queer Remus, Queer Themes, Religious Conflict, Rimming, Rough Sex, Slow Burn, Spanish Sirius, Think The Hot Priest From Fleabag, Well Like Quick Burn And Then Slow Burn, black remus, genderqueer Remus, just go with me here, substance use</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>In-Progress</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-12-07</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2021-04-04</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-10 21:22:27</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Explicit</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>18</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>52,325</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/27930709</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/BrujaBanter/pseuds/BrujaBanter</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>Two strangers meet in a loud and dingy club. It's love at first sight, except the few mitigating circumstances. Namely, that Sirius is married to God, Remus is a minister, love is complicated, and religion is even more so. </p><p>OR</p><p>In which Sirius is a priest, Remus is a preacher, Lily is a badass, and James is confused.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>James Potter/Lily Evans Potter, Sirius Black/Remus Lupin</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>162</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>96</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>1. The Back Room</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>Hi, beautiful friends!</p><p>Once upon a time, I had a sermon to write. So instead of writing it, I mapped out an entire AU. She's a long one, folks, but I promise a weekly upload at minimum (we're shooting for two a week, and by "we", I mean me and the humongous amounts of tea I've been drinking as I write). </p><p>Now, for the elephant in the room: I recognize that this is a bit of a ~niche~ AU, but I promise it's more relatable than it sounds. It explores identity and love and religion and trauma and what's considered sacred and what isn't and how that's all kind of bullshit. I also promise a good bit of sex and humor and banter, exploration of a multitude of identities, complex family dynamics (OOOh fun), and plot development (WHAT? In THIS ECONOMY? I know, I was surprised too). I also promise a glossary for terms that may be a bit unfamiliar to some.</p><p>All this to say, give it a shot if you'd like. And also: She's my baby. Treat her gently. </p><p>Take care of yourselves. </p><p>CW: This is an explicitly sexual fic. There will be details. There will be taboos. There will be blood. (Actually, I’m not sure yet if there will be blood, but do y’all remember that Daniel Day Lewis movie from like ten years ago? That thing was LONG. Anyway, there will probably be blood.) If you are ace or otherwise smut averse, PLEASE feel free to shoot me a DM on Tumblr or leave a comment, and I’ll walk you through avoiding the graphic scenes as best I can. You belong here, too.</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p><em>The most sacred thing a man can do is suck another man’s cock</em>.</p><p>No. That’s too on the nose, even for Remus. He deletes it, takes a swig of his lukewarm peppermint tea, and tries again.</p><p>
  <em>The most sacred thing a man can do is get on his knees.</em>
</p><p>That’s really not much better, honestly. Less graphic, sure, but his congregation knows him too well at this point to not understand that the double entendre was precisely the point. He presses his index finger to the backspace button until it clicks at him, mockingly, letting him know he’s deleted everything there was to delete, and that wasn’t much.</p><p>It’s Saturday. Saturday night. Saturday night and it’s exactly…11:36 PM and whoever said waiting until the night before preaching a sermon to write it is the best inspiration was a damn dirty liar.</p><p>
  <em>The most sacred thing a man can do is…is…is swallow another man’s hot jizz and feel it dripping down his throat and into his own stomach and it makes his own cock rock hard and</em>
</p><p>Fuck it. He slams his laptop shut and stands too quickly from his chair. His long, gangly legs miss their mark and he bangs his knobby knees into the underside of the desk. It hurts more than it has any right to and he’s already frustrated with himself for his procrastination, so he throws his mechanical pencil at the opposite wall, where it lands with a thoroughly unsatisfying <em>tink</em>.</p><p>Before he knows it, he’s slipping on his tennis shoes and grabbing his denim jacket off the hook behind the front door. He unchains his bike from its haphazard perch – bracketed up against one of the splintery wooden columns in between the mesh of his screened-in porch – and takes off down Broad Street without a second thought.</p><p>Griphook is crowded tonight, has been ever since Rita and the Skeeters played it a couple weeks ago. Their sleeper hit, “Beetle on the Wall”, brought in huge swaths of heterosexual hipsters and teenage punk rockers with fake IDs, and apparently, they hadn’t left yet. It never used to be like this, it used to be just the right kind of busy: not so crowded that you couldn’t find what you were looking for, but just crowded enough to suck someone off under the table without being noticed. Now it’s just…loud.</p><p>He makes his way to the crowded bar through a haze of cigarette smoke and Axe Body Spray and knows by that alone that the queers are not in charge here tonight. Marlene serves him first, over the protests of a particularly loud bachelorette party, and they share a look of frustration and resentment that’s one part fully justified queer rage and one part just not wanting to share their toys. </p><p>Griphook is a gay bar, and not the rainbow flag kind. Griphook is the kind of gay bar that’s existed for decades, pre-Stonewall even, before it could ever be advertised as such and when patrons wore different colored handkerchiefs to signal how they wanted to be fucked. Back then, entering the establishment meant you were a queer, a sissy, a dyke, a fag, and a <em>brave </em>one at that. Back then, entering the establishment meant risking your life for the sake of liberation. It’s different now, of course, but the owners – two old queens who refused to sell even when the real estate prices went way up – keep the drinks cheap and the floors dirty and the couches covered in cum-stains, let the patrons know “you’re welcome here, but you enter at your own risk”. Remus loves that about Griphook, that you always know what you're getting yourself into. It may be easier to be queer nowadays, but it’s harder to find places – and people – who let you know exactly what they’re about.</p><p>Remus over-tips Marlene (she’ll insist on buying him sushi later to make up for it) and leans up against the bar, training his eyes on the dance floor. He sips his drink and watches, waits, ready to find what he’s looking for tonight. The lights are a bit dimmer than usual, and the music a bit louder, and the whole room is buzzing with a kind of energy that’s not entirely settling. The couches that line the walls are all hosting couples, most of whom are making out or whispering into each other’s ears, or getting mighty close to the point where they need to decide if they’re going to take it home or take it into the back, lest they put everyone in danger of unwelcome police presence. Gawkers linger in corners, another bachelorette party and a few straight-appearing couples, and giggle and whisper and make it abundantly clear that they’d <em>never </em>debase themselves in such a way, despite the fact that they can’t seem to take their eyes off the scene at hand. The walls were white once, but are now covered floor-to-ceiling in art, some commissioned and some, like the striking graffiti display in one corner, not. The floors are old, cracked hardwood that wouldn’t ever get truly clean even if the management did try, and it holds up hordes of energetic dancers without so much as the occasional squeak. The restrooms are around the corner to Remus’s left, two gender-neutral stalls that always have a line and that regulars know to never shit, fuck, or shoot up in. There’s another room for that.</p><p>The back room is the best part of Griphook. It’s behind an unassuming wood door on the back wall, and to unknowing lookers-on, it appears a door to a storage room or an office. But it’s a door to heaven, that door, to Narnia or Middle-earth or Oz, to a Wonderland the likes of which no mortal has ever created. It’s saved his life, that room. That room is why he’s here. Later, if he doesn’t find someone right away, he’ll go alone, take a spot against the wall and survey the scene. Not everyone can do that – people get suspicious when they see an unfamiliar face watching – but Remus has frequented this bar for years now, and is more likely to get an invitation to join in than he is a dirty look. He’ll let the wall hold his weight and he’ll get high on the air, high on black-gloved fists working their way in and out of their partner’s bodies, high on the strangled moans and muffled screams, high on the smell of cum and sweat and fear and love and liberation.</p><p>He’d rather not go alone tonight, though. Tonight, he needs connection, needs to touch and be touched. Tonight, he wants to feel pain; deep and achy or sharp and stinging, he doesn’t much care. He wants his cock touched, his throat tickled, his asshole stretched. Tonight, he wants to fuck.</p><p>He sips his double whiskey and starts surveying the room. He nods his head or smiles at the folks he recognizes, some of whom he’s fucked and some of whom he hasn’t. There’s all sorts here tonight; the rave types, who dance frantically with glowsticks tied around their necks. The leather crowd, conspicuous as can be in their attire yet the most likely to tenderly stroke their dance partner’s arm, or tuck a strand of sweaty hair behind his ear. The hipsters, low jeans and flannel and craft beers and septum piercings. There’s a few goths and some punks (always and emphatically different, even if you can’t tell based on appearance alone) and a bunch of other folks who, like Remus himself, can’t be boxed into any one subculture. And then there’s…</p><p>There’s him.</p><p>Remus’s eyes land on him and they don’t move, couldn’t even if they wanted to. He’s absolutely positive he’s never seen the man before, and yet the man moves like the entire club belongs to him. He’s dancing, moving his body as if through water, smooth and fluid and almost elegant. His shoulder-length black hair is half tied-up, but errant strands drop around his face and stick to his forehead, which glows with what might be sweat or might be glitter or might be both. He’s dressed simply, in dark jeans and a dark tank top and simple black boots, but it’s his skin that catches Remus’s attention. Save his hands, neck, and face, every visible inch is adorned with tattoos. They’re beautiful on him, suit him as if they simply appeared there one day, and Remus is overcome with the urge to run his tongue over every one of them.</p><p>He swallows the rest of his drink and discards his glass on the bar top before moving purposefully in the man’s direction, weaving through people, some of whom greet him with a warm “hey, Remus!”. When he finally reaches his target, the man is turned away from him, moving his head languidly back and forth. Remus begins dancing, waiting for the man to turn his direction (approaching a stranger from behind is not Remus’s style, nor should it be, in his opinion, anyone’s).</p><p>The song winds down, it’s final notes fading and Robyn’s “Dancing on My Own” beginning to take over. If that’s not a fucking sign, he does't know what is, so as soon as the man turns back around, Remus pounces.</p><p>“Mind if I join you?” Remus shouts over the music.</p><p>The man’s eyes remain closed, his arms moving up his body and over his head as his hips sway in perfect rhythm. “No, thanks, I’m…” He begins. But then he opens his eyes, looks into Remus’s face, and his movements slow a bit. He smiles at Remus – brilliant and warm, perfect white teeth interrupted by a single crooked canine – and Remus is fully prepared to back off, cut his losses and reevaluate his options. But the man reaches out his hand, as if to shake Remus’s, and says, “Would you like to dance?”</p><p>Remus smiles back, reaches out his own hand even though he finds the gesture a bit formal for the setting, and no sooner have their hands touched than the man is pulling Remus close to him and <em>oh</em>, his body. Warm and solid and hard lines, it meets Remus’s, which is more soft edges and painted fingernails. Remus is instantly hard, and he’s certain the man can feel his erection as they begin to sway in time together.</p><p>“I’ve never seen you here before,” Remus says, more for the sake of saying something at all.</p><p>The man grins, betraying nothing, and uses his grip on Remus’s hip to spin him around so his back is against the man’s chest. He’s surprisingly strong, and Remus nearly loses his balance for a moment before the man grabs him around the middle, steadying him and destabilizing him all at once. His senses are entirely overcome – pulsing music and pulsing bodies and heat and the absolutely intoxicating scent of what Remus thinks is sandalwood and musk and tobacco but is actually just sex. Remus can feel the man’s own cock now, impossibly hot against his ass as they grind together, and his head starts to float into a space alcohol can only somewhat be responsible for.</p><p>They dance a while, Remus thinks, at least a few songs, though each one is just a series of beats and sounds that enter their shared bodies like current, kinetic energy made from vibrations and transformed into heat and power and <em>fuck</em>, Remus wants him. Wants him like he hasn’t wanted anyone or anything maybe in forever. He’s glued to this man, completely at his will, and it’s exactly where he wants to be.</p><p>The energy builds and builds, and finally they are so close, so physically close that there is nothing more to touch. Physics says two things can never really touch anyway, so all that’s left is to consume. Devour. The man takes Remus’s ear between his teeth and bites, hard and sharp into cartilage that would otherwise bleed. He pulls the skin with his teeth and Remus goes too, his head lulling back further into the man’s control. It’s time now, so Remus grabs hold of the man’s hand and pulls, leads him to the back room with something urgent and desperate.</p><p>They find a corner, somewhat private, and the man has Remus backed against the wall. Remus’s hands are pinned above his head and his hips thrust needily into the air between them. He’s embarrassed at how much he wants it, but the man just smiles and pins Remus’s hips to the wall with his own, whispers “poor thing” into Remus’s ear and grinds against him and <em>fuck</em>. This one is going to ruin him.</p><p>The man doesn’t stop, doesn’t breathe, just drops to his knees and takes out Remus’s cock and swallows it down, choking on it and wanting to choke on it and fucking Remus with the hottest mouth he has ever seen. He’s going to come soon, has been right on the edge throughout the last three songs at least, and tugs on the stranger’s hair to warn him. It’s soft, <em>so fucking soft</em>, and long and heavy, and making Remus come embarrassingly quickly must be just this man’s goal, because he holds Remus’s hand there, encouraging him to guide the man’s head however he wants it.</p><p>The air smells different here, smells different from its usual different even, smells like metal and cranberries and blood and it’s only because the stranger wants him to, only because the stranger wants to choke on his cock that Remus really lets him choke on his cock. He thrusts into the stranger’s hot, wet, cranberry mouth and grips his head, pulling him onto it, and still the man looks up at him as if he’s fully in control. He is – if Remus is honest – because his eyes glint as they look up at Remus and his throat swallows him down as if beckoning him into it, devouring him. It’s too intense, far too intimate, so Remus shuts his eyes and thrusts harder and comes down the throat of a man who swallows it like wine.</p><p>Remus hasn’t begun to recover and the man is on his feet again, is biting and licking his way over Remus’s throat – is on a goddamn tour of it, really, sniffing and marking and running his flat tongue over the skin as if memorizing its texture. He’s rock hard, Remus can tell, but he’s still completely in control of himself. He pulls back and looks at Remus so intensely Remus has no choice but to open his eyes and look right back into the startling silver orbs mere inches from his face.</p><p>“What do you want?” The man asks.</p><p>Remus shivers. It’s a certain kind of question. It’s not “what do you like?” or “what are you into?”, the most common questions around here after “do you have a condom?”. It’s an invitation. It means Remus could say whatever he pleased in response, and this man would do it for him. They are trading power back and forth, and Remus won’t have it for long, but he has it right now.</p><p>“Hurt me,” He says. And because that’s dangerously open-ended, adds “no blood play, no breath play.”</p><p>The man, in response, smiles again. It’s not sadistic, truly, not the kind of smile that indicates this was the answer he was hoping for. Instead it’s almost servile. “What’s your safe word?” He asks.</p><p>“Whatever you want it to be,” Remus responds. Because that’s the mood, what he wants to say, and because he truly cannot remember.</p><p>“'Christmas',” the man replies. “Can I fuck you?” He asks.</p><p><em>Please</em>, Remus thinks. “Yes,” he says. “With a condom.”</p><p>The man nods and his eyes glint. He turns Remus so that he’s facing the wall now and instructs him to place his palms on the wall. He’s commanding and confident and gentle all at once. Remus feels like bending right over, like telling the man he can have Remus however he wants, but he doesn’t. He waits.</p><p>The man goes for Remus’s fly, ignoring his cock altogether and Remus wants him to so desperately he has to place his forehead against the cool wall to calm himself. He breathes through his nose as the man works his zipper down.</p><p>“You’re so fucking sexy,” The man says to him, surveying his bare ass as he pushes Remus’s pants over it.</p><p>Remus doesn’t get that often, actually. He gets “cute” and “pretty” and “handsome” and “adorable” and even sometimes “beautiful”, but “sexy” is a specific word. Sexy is irresistible hunger and lust and leather jackets. Sexy is putting its hands all over Remus’s ass and running its tongue over the top notches of Remus’s spine.</p><p>“Um,” Remus responds, the “m” elongating into a moan as the man dips his fingers into the cleft of Remus’s ass. “You’re sexy.” He’s never been able to take a compliment. “You’re very, very–<em>fuck</em>!”</p><p>The blow hits him deep in his body, not sharp and smarting like a hand spank normally is, but thudding and intense. The second one too, on the opposite side of his ass, hits and holds and stays, like it’s making a home there.</p><p>“That okay?” The man asks.</p><p>Remus doesn’t trust his voice, so he just nods enthusiastically.</p><p>“Your ass,” The man says, a whole sentence in itself, as he grabs and massages and spanks and grabs again. “Can I taste?”</p><p>If Remus was in his right mind, he’d say “no”, or “let’s talk about it”, but he left his right mind back on the dance floor somewhere and besides, it’s the man putting himself at risk, not Remus. It’s a selfish thought and an irresponsible one and he pushes his ass back anyway, spreads his legs, inviting.</p><p>The man drops to his knees on the sticky floor and licks like he’s absolutely parched, like he’s been waiting his whole life just to taste Remus’s asshole. He spreads Remus and laps at him, moaning so deeply Remus can actually <em>feel </em>it, and grabs hold of Remus as if he’s afraid the whole thing might be an illusion, a mirage of a thirsty, desperate man.</p><p>Rimming has never done much for Remus before, but now he’s absolutely losing it. Every swipe of the man’s tongue is amplified, his hunger for it awakening a hunger in Remus too, and soon he’s thrusting back into the man’s mouth with absolute abandon, fucking his tongue.</p><p>“Fuckfuckfuck…” Remus moans.</p><p>The man answers him with a sharp blow to his ass and a growl of his own, not letting up even a little. He breaks only to spit into his hand, after which he inserts two fingers into Remus’s body and licks around them and Remus is going to come again, feels the pressure building in his balls, is going to come right against this wall without a single stroke to his cock. He doesn’t think he says it out loud, but the man eases off moments later anyway. He stands again and makes quick work freeing his own cock and putting on a condom he pulls from his back pocket.</p><p>“Suck,” He says, putting two fingers in Remus’s mouth.</p><p>Remus sucks. He licks and moans and nearly swallows those fingers, gagging on them slightly when they push deeply into his mouth, before they pull out with a “pop” and enter Remus’s asshole instead, slowly and gently and almost reverently.</p><p>“Please,” He says, rutting back onto the fingers and forward into nothing. “Please just fuck me.”</p><p>“You sure?” The man asks. His chivalry would be charming if it wasn’t the only thing standing in the way of Remus having a cock in his ass, so he impatiently reaches behind him and grasps the man’s cock clumsily, guiding it towards his hole in a way he hopes answers the question sufficiently.</p><p>The man still enters him agonizingly slowly. Remus is so distracted by the torture that it takes him a moment to notice the sharp pain of the bite to his shoulder and the relief of the hand on his cock. The man finally bottoms out, and Remus doesn’t know whether to thrust into the hand around his cock or back onto the cock in his ass or recoil from the sharp pain of the bite or levitate straight up to the ceiling, so what he actually does is nearly fall over. Maybe the man catches him or maybe he was planning to do it anyway but he wraps his free arm around Remus’s torso. Tight and warm and hard and reassuring.</p><p>“My <em>God</em>,” He says, and he sounds on the verge of losing it himself. “You feel incredible.” He begins moving inside Remus, slowly pulling out and then thrusting all the way back in. He fucks like he dances, as if through water, graceful, smooth movements that allow Remus to feel <em>everything</em>. “So incredible,” He repeats.</p><p>He speeds up, but keeps the same intensity. The pressure continues to mount in Remus’s balls and he doesn’t think before he brings his own hand to join the hand already around his cock, strokes himself a few times and doesn’t even have time to warn the man before he’s shooting into his palm.</p><p>And the man, growling as Remus pulses around him through his orgasm, <em>does not let up</em>. He pounds into Remus, still like water but now more like a wave, and holds Remus even tighter, keeps his body upright. His cock brushes over Remus’s swollen prostate and sends shocks of sensation through Remus’s body in a way that is more pain than it is pleasure, but he asked this man to hurt him, so he leans into it. He comes down from his orgasm and leans back into it and welcomes the pain, helping it along with the hand that he brings behind him to the man’s hips, encouraging him in even deeper.</p><p>“I want you hard for me,” The man growls behind him.</p><p>Remus nearly laughs, being both not sixteen anymore and also on the verge of nearly passing out. But then the man begins rolling one of Remus’s nipples between his fingers, planting open-mouthed kisses to the back of his neck and whispering encouragements to him and, still, moving inside him like water. He feels his cock stir, somehow, again.</p><p>“That’s it,” The man says, taking Remus’s cock in his fist and encouraging it along. “Get hard for me. <em>Fuck </em>yes…just like that…<em>so </em>good…so tight around me…milk my cock, baby, <em>yes</em>…”</p><p>He keeps talking, short little statements that travel right back down to Remus’s burgeoning erection, the blood rushing back into it making him lightheaded. He leans his head back onto the man’s shoulder, and it’s strangely intimate given he doesn’t even know this man’s name. But the man encourages it, even plants a small kiss to his cheek, and keeps stroking Remus back to hardness, keeps moving inside him.</p><p>“Put your arms around my neck,” He says.</p><p>Remus brings his arms behind him, grabs onto the back of the man’s neck and gives thanks for the long, lanky limbs that used to get him made fun of in high school. Without the stability of the wall there’s nothing to hold him up now, nothing but the stranger moving inside him like water, so he lets go entirely. He lets his body be a ragdoll, a cliff for the waves to crash over.</p><p>The man kisses at the dip between Remus’s shoulder and his neck, kisses and then licks and then bites and then licks again, his movements becoming ever so slightly more erratic now. He fists Remus’s cock with one hand and holds Remus to him with the other and they are both moaning incoherently now, Remus’s closer to sounds and the man’s closer to actual words. He’s close, Remus can tell, because he feels the little stutters in his movements and the man grips him almost painfully hard now.</p><p>“I–<em>fuck</em>,” He growls. “Fuck, I want you to come. I want you to come around my cock.”</p><p>Remus didn’t know he could orgasm on command, but he’s so, <em>so </em>close to doing so. He can’t do anything but moan “yes, please, make me come” into the air around them and lean further back into the man’s grip.</p><p>“Come here,” The man says. Somehow Remus knows what he means, and he turns his head, capturing the man’s mouth in a rough and sloppy and hungry kiss that is mostly tongue and teeth.</p><p>“Oh, <em>fuck </em>yes,” The man moans, breaking the kiss. And then desperately, “Please. Please come for me.”</p><p>It’s the desperation that does it, and Remus's vision goes black for a moment, his knees giving out, as he paints the wall with a mural of his own cum.</p><p>The man goes silent, keeps holding Remus up and bottoms out inside him a few strokes later, muffling what might have been a scream into Remus’s shoulder. Remus can feel the way his hips stutter a bit, the shakiness of the breath that ghosts across his neck. They stand there, panting and sweating and coming back to earth. They kiss again – the man still inside him – and this time it’s deeper, more intimate.</p><p>It’s him, not Remus, who finally loosens his grip around Remus’s torso and pulls out, removing the condom and dropping it in one of the small, lined wastebaskets scattered around the room for just such a purpose. He runs his fingers through his hair and gives Remus a look he can’t quite place.</p><p>Remus chuckles a bit, tucking himself back into his jeans and straightening his shirt. “Well,” He says. “Um…”</p><p>“That was fun,” The man responds, smiling at Remus.</p><p>“Yeah.” Remus smiles back. “It was.”</p><p>The man bends over to fix a loose lace on his boot, looking up at Remus through long eyelashes. Something catches Remus eyes, a loose gold chain that slips out of the man’s shirt as he bends over, adorned with a medallion Remus would recognize anywhere. Before he can comment on it, the man has tucked it protectively back inside his shirt.</p><p>He stands, walks the few paces towards Remus, and cups him gently behind his neck, planting a sweet kiss to his lips that catches Remus so off guard he doesn’t even have time to close his eyes.</p><p>“Thanks,” the man says, and then turns and walks right back out towards the dance floor.</p><p>Remus stands stock still for a few moments, completely thrown by the interaction. His mind is foggy from drink and climax and physical exertion, but he can’t help but feel something important has just happened. Something odd. He brings his fingers to his lips as to check they are still there, that the stranger didn’t just up and walk away with them. He can feel the sensation of that final kiss – gentle, appreciative – and it nestles itself into his mind. More than being fucked or rimmed or coming all over the wall (all of which are not unusual for a Saturday night at Griphook), that final, sweet kiss holds itself to his memory, and Remus decides he’ll let it stay there.</p><p>Remus takes a deep breath, checks that he looks presentable, then leaves out the fire exit. He feels no need to go back out into the main room, to dance more or drink more. He’s gotten what he came he for.</p><p>He arrives back home just past 1 AM, has a glass of water and doesn’t bother showing. When he sits again at the chair by his desk, he feels the familiar ache in his ass, runs his hand absentmindedly over the purpling mark where the stranger bit into his flesh as he came. He smiles, and then opens his laptop and begins typing quickly.</p><p>
  <em>The most sacred thing a man can do is allow himself to be okay with what gives him pleasure. </em>
</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0002"><h2>2. Details</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Summary for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
            <p>James wants all the gory details (sort of). Remus wants to stop thinking about it (sort of).</p>
          </blockquote><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>Forgot to mention, this story is set in The States. The glossary is in the end notes, in case there are terms or references here you are unfamiliar with, but I promise that not understanding them does not impact the story in any way. </p>
<p>Stay well, friends!</p></blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>James is late. He’s late even for James, and that’s saying something. Remus checks his phone again – 1:27 – and is considering buying himself a second cookie when James bounds through the front door, mussing his messy black hair and looking around the shop until he spots Remus.</p>
<p>“I’m late,” James says, throwing his book bag down on the empty chair opposite Remus and taking a seat in the chair next to it.</p>
<p>“I noticed,” Remus replies.</p>
<p>“I’m sorry, Moony. We were meeting with the florist today and who <em>knew </em>a conversation about roses could take so <em>long</em>.” James rambles on a bit longer about the extravagant cost of bouquet ribbon, all the while beaming in spite of himself. It’s contagious – James’s excitement always has been – and by the time he’s done with his explanation, Remus is smiling too.</p>
<p>“Anyway,” James finishes, “I’m sorry. Hope you weren’t too bored.” He reaches across the table for Remus’s cappuccino, taking a long sip from it and coming away with a foam mustache, which he wipes away with the back of his hand.  “How did Sunday end up going?”</p>
<p>“Good, actually,” Remus responds, snatching his mug away from James’s reach. “Really good.”</p>
<p>“First Romans,” James whistles dramatically. “That’s a rough one.”</p>
<p>“Yeah, speaking of…”</p>
<p>James starts to reach again for Remus’s cappuccino, but stops short. “You didn’t.”</p>
<p>Remus smiles mischievously. “I did.”</p>
<p>A look very akin to one he might have given Remus after coming up with a truly brilliant prank dawns over James’s face. “You <em>didn’t.</em>” He reaches across the table to punch Remus on the shoulder playfully. “Good for you, man! How was it received?”</p>
<p>“Well, speaking of…”</p>
<p>“Oh, enough with the anal sex jokes! How did it go?”</p>
<p>Remus laughs. “It went great! I got a ton of great feedback on it, the emails are still rolling in. I’m actually thinking of doing a series.” He lowers his voice to mimic an announcer. “All the bible verses used to condemn homosexuality, explained in terms of kinky sex.” At that, James claps his hands together, laughing. “Of course, I’ll have to market it a bit differently, but you know.”</p>
<p>“Oh I think you should market it exactly like that, see how far you can push ‘em.” James flags down Alice, the sweet waitress they’ve known since they first became regulars here years ago, and orders a cappuccino of his own along with two additional chocolate chip cookies. “Really, Remus, leave it to you to turn one of the most difficult passages in the lectionary into a lesson about how God is a massive perv.”</p>
<p>“I am merely a servant of the Lord, James,” Remus responds with mock seriousness. “So how is the rest of the wedding planning going?”</p>
<p>They talk for a few minutes about the venue, the difficulty of finding a reasonably priced caterer, and Lily’s disapproving family. Alice arrives back with James’s order – bringing a refill for Remus too, even though he hadn’t asked for it – and James immediately begins tearing into his cookie.</p>
<p>“What else did you get up to this weekend?” James asks around a mouthful of food.</p>
<p>Remus’s heart does a little leap, but he shrugs. “The usual.”</p>
<p>“You met someone,” James says immediately. James always has had the annoyingly spot-on ability to tell when someone was holding something back, part of the reason he now makes such an exceptional lawyer.</p>
<p>“No,” Remus lies. Because he hasn’t. Not really.</p>
<p>“Who is he?” James presses on.</p>
<p>“He’s no one, James.” Remus tries to deflect by taking an exceptionally hard look at a new piece of artwork hung on the café wall, but can feel James’s glare boring into him still. “Okay fine,” He concedes, looking back at James. “But it’s so dumb. I don’t even know the guy’s name. It’s pathetic.”</p>
<p>“It’s not pathetic,” James responds warmly. “There’s something special about him.</p>
<p>Remus shrugs again. “Maybe. Probably not. It’s probably all in my head.”</p>
<p>“Don’t do that, Moony,” James responds. “Don’t try to talk yourself out of it. You’re always hooking up with new people. If you felt something special with this one, it was probably there.”</p>
<p>Remus smiles at James, silently thankful, once again, for a friend who knows him so completely. The truth was, Remus couldn’t place what it was about the man on Saturday night that felt different…<em>special </em>even. He’d spent more time than he’d care to admit thinking about it – about him – trying to figure out what it was exactly that was sticking with him. But every time, it came back to the simplest things – those bold, silver eyes, the way he danced, the way he held Remus so close to him while he fucked him, the way he carefully tucked that necklace back inside his shirt, the way he kissed him and thanked him and then just walked away – nothing that he could logically pin down as a reason to feel anything other than well fucked. He’d even gone so far as to write down the encounter, over and over, analyzing it from every possible objective angle.</p>
<p>“Well?” James asks impatiently. “Tell me more! I want all the gory details.”</p>
<p>Remus has known James long enough to know that he does not, in fact, want <em>all </em>the gory details. He tries, poor thing, but Remus knows to skirt around some of the more…unconventional aspects of his life. He gives James the highlights, and elaborates only when he’s feeling particularly sadistic.</p>
<p>“So…I don’t know who he is,” Remus begins.</p>
<p>“Yes, we’ve acknowledged that much already. What did he look like?”</p>
<p>The wily grin that creeps onto Remus’s face is entirely not lost on James, who decides not to point it out. “He’s…<em>fuck</em>, James. He’s so hot. The most amazing hair, and eyes, and <em>body</em>, Christ.”</p>
<p>“So, wait. You’re telling me he has hair, <em>and </em>eyes, <em>and</em>…a <em>body</em>? How is he still single?” James notes with his telltale sarcasm, sipping his own cappuccino indulgently.</p>
<p>“Well what exactly do you want me to tell you, Jamie?” Remus asks, trying his hardest to be annoyed and failing miserably. “His dick size?”</p>
<p>“Sure!” James exclaims, taking another large bite of his cookie. “You’re not exactly known for providing the most detailed information, Moony, I’ll take whatever I can get. How was the sex?”</p>
<p>Remus has to appreciate how far James has come, asking him so casually about queer sex in the middle of the day in a public place. Five years ago, James would have gone beat red at the mere suggestion. He’s infinitely proud of the man sitting across from him, of how much he’s learned and grown, and <em>that’s </em>why he can’t stop smiling, really. Friendship. Growth. The overcoming of toxic masculinity. He’s positively beaming at the concept. Beaming and…and a little hard, too. All because of friendship.</p>
<p>“The sex was nice,” He says coyly. Well, maybe not so coyly. He brings his mug to his mouth and, right before he sips from it, says under his breath, “I may have come three times in under an hour.”</p>
<p>James makes a show of appearing dumbstruck by the concept, even though Remus knowns for a fact that’s nowhere near James’s own record. Still, he clutches the edges of the table and leans into Remus for added effect. “I <em>love </em>that for you, Moons.”</p>
<p>Remus smiles at his friend. “Thanks. <em>Oh</em>, but you know what was weird?”</p>
<p>“The sex?” James asks, again through a large bite.</p>
<p>“No,” Remus laughs. “No, the sex was just weird enough. But when we were, you know…done, he bent over to tie his shoe, and I saw that he was wearing an Our Lady.”</p>
<p>“He was wearing a lady?” James asks confusedly, tilting his head to the side like a dog.</p>
<p>“Oh my God, James, no.” Remus takes a moment to laugh at James’s expense, one of his favorite pastimes. “No, an <em>Our Lady</em>, like the Virgin Mary.”</p>
<p>“Oh!” James responds. “Oh, got it. Wait, why do you call that a ‘your lady’?”</p>
<p>“James, you are the whitest human being to ever live,” Remus teases him. “Like ‘Our Lady of Guadalupe’? It’s like, a specific rendering if the Virgin Mary, common in Mexican culture. Plus, calling her that sidesteps all the weird, sex-negative ‘virgin’ bullshit.”</p>
<p>“Right, right,” James responds a little distractedly, “But why is that weird?”</p>
<p>Remus shrugs. “It’s just not really a common sight in the back room of Griphook, you know? Not a lot of religious paraphernalia around there. It’s just not something you expect to see on the man who just licked your asshole.”</p>
<p>Remus doesn’t miss the reflexive little twitch of James’s eye, and takes a tiny bit of pleasure in it.</p>
<p>“Well,” James says, recovering quickly, “I mean, <em>you’re </em>there. So isn’t that a little hypocritical?”</p>
<p>Remus shrugs dismissively. “Maybe. Anyway, it just wasn’t what I was expecting. But this guy…there was just something unique about him in general, you know? Just something…<em>fine</em>, special.”</p>
<p>Remus feels himself beginning to blush, which he covers by reaching for his napkin and dabbing needlessly at his lips.</p>
<p>“Oh damn,” James says, looking right at Remus and frowning. “Oh <em>fuck</em>.”</p>
<p>“What?” Remus asks, somewhat defensively.</p>
<p>“Oh, you are fucking <em>toast</em>, dude. Look at you!”</p>
<p>“What do you mean?!”</p>
<p>“You’re smitten! Who <em>is </em>this guy? Does he have a golden dick or something?”</p>
<p>“James, you’re being ridiculous,” Remus responds, though he does notice he still can’t quite stop smiling. “Like I said, I don’t even know his name. I’d never even seen him before. For all I know, he’s some drifter just in town for the weekend or, like, I don’t know, some repressed straight dude who wanted to take a walk on the wild side.”</p>
<p>James smirks at him. “A ‘walk on the wild side’, Lou Reed? This isn’t 1998, Moony. You <em>have </em>to see him again.”</p>
<p>“How, James?” His voice is a bit angrier than he intended. He didn’t like the way this stranger was throwing him off so much. “I <em>don’t know his name</em>.” He emphasizes every word as if James is someone who doesn't quite understand English. “Just drop it, okay? Now, we have some serious bachelor party planning to do.”</p>
<p>For a moment, it seemed like James was going to keep pushing. But he thinks better of it, clearing the mugs and plates from the center of the table and pulling his laptop out of his book bag.</p>
<p>“Okay, I know it’s a cliché, but hear me out: I’m thinking? Vegas.”</p>
<p> </p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p><strong>First Romans </strong> <strong>(Romans 1):</strong> A book in the New Testament of the Bible, written by the Apostle Paul. It is widely known for a specific passage (1:26-27) which, many argue, condemns homosexuality. </p>
<p><strong>Lectionary: </strong> A collection of pre-selected, week-by-week Bible passages that can be used for worship. Many churches use the lectionary so that every church studies the same Bible passage each week. However, there are different versions of the lectionary, and some churches do not use the lectionary at all, instead choosing that week's passage at random or in line with a specific teaching/current event.</p>
        </blockquote></div></div>
<a name="section0003"><h2>3. A Priest's Russian Roulette</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Summary for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
            <p>Sirius has two sacred conversations.</p>
          </blockquote><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>Hi, pals! Content warning here for some internalized homophobia/religious trauma. That will be a recurring theme, but it's not so much a thing for our lovely pairing as it is in other minor characters/the discourse around Christianity and queerness in general. There's no avoiding it in a story like this. But I promise it will be subversive as hell. Glossary is in the end notes.</p><p>Stay well!</p></blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Sirius kills the engine on his motorcycle and drops the kickstand into the crumbling asphalt of the church parking lot. It’s a chilly October day and he cups his hands around his mouth to warm them, having forgotten (again) to bring his gloves. He’ll keep forgetting until late November, when the first snowfall will leave his fingertips blue and numb.</p><p>He waves at the gardener tending the rose bushes around the front walkway before cutting through the cemetery on his way to the carriage house that now serves as the church rectory. It’s a small, Tudor-style cottage with a crooked bay window in the front. The parish kids call it the ‘Hobbit House’, because its roof is so old and moss-covered that it almost appears thatched. Ivy has overgrown the front of it, and Sirius likes it that way, so he instructs the gardener not to worry about it and lets it offer him the illusion of more privacy than he actually has.</p><p>He closes the front door behind him and drops his keys in the Talavera bowl he inherited from Father Montez. He grabs a beer from the fridge and checks the clock over the oven, noting that he has three and a half hours until he has to be back at the church to take confession. That’s three and a half hours he could spend working on a homily, or going for a run, or scrolling mindlessly through Facebook, which is what he ends up doing. He’s wasted a good hour and a half when his phone rings. He smiles at the picture that pops up on his home screen and answers on the second ring.</p><p>“Hey,” He says.</p><p>“Father!” The man on the other line chirps dramatically. “Oh <em>Father</em>, thank God, I <em>desperately </em>need to confess my sins.”</p><p>“Sorry, Prongs,” Sirius responds, “I only have two hours, and we both know that’s not <em>near </em>enough time for you to confess your sins.”</p><p>“I better stick to the sins of the flesh then, Father. You cannot <em>imagine </em>the amount of premarital sex I’ve had, I–”</p><p>“Was there for far too much of it,” Sirius finishes for him. “Speaking of, how is the wife-to-be?”</p><p>“Stressed, at the moment.”</p><p>“I would be, too, if I agreed to spend the rest of my life with you.”</p><p>“I’ll have you know,” James responds haughtily, “That her stress is <em>entirely </em>dissertation-related. I am merely the sparkling gem of a person who makes her life bearable.”</p><p>“I have no doubt,” Sirius responds through a giant grin. “What’s up?”</p><p>“Calling to check on you,” James says, something rustling in the background. “How are you settling in?”</p><p>“Fine,” Sirius responds, mostly honestly. “The old ladies invited me to join their knitting group, so I’m basically in.”</p><p>“Oh, you <em>love </em>knitting,” James responds merrily.</p><p>“It was one Christmas, Prongs.”</p><p>“I know. We still use those stockings every year.”</p><p>Sirius laughs in response, fondly remembering the year he insisted on knitting each of the Potters a homemade scarf, a hobby which – like most of Sirius’s hobbies – got a bit out of hand.</p><p>“No, but really Pads, how are you?”</p><p>Sirius sighs, taking a moment to think about the question before answering. “It’s been an adjustment.”</p><p>Which is what is commonly referred to as 'an understatement'. He’s been at the parish going on twelve weeks now, and the congregants have been welcoming enough. A bit wary at times, which is only to be expected following a shift in leadership, but he’d already been invited to many family dinners and given many casseroles, and he couldn’t expect much better than that. The church is beautiful – old and solemn, with intricate stained-glass windows and a baptismal font as old as the building itself. He’s closer to James and Lily now, just under an hour away, and he’s further from his family, another win. And yet, still. It’s not home.</p><p>“I’ll get used to it,” Sirius says in conclusion, hoping it sounds more convincing to James than it does to himself.</p><p>Sirius hears Lily in the distance and James shouting ‘Coming, my dear!’ before returning to Sirius. “I’ve gotta run, Pads, emergency ice cream run. But how about dinner this week? Lil and I will come to you!”</p><p>Sirius can’t help but feel a little tug of warmth at this, a tug that begins to boil at the top when he thinks back to…well, when he thinks, really.</p><p>“Sounds good, buddy,” Sirius says a little wistfully. “Tell Lily I say ‘hey’.”</p><p>“Will do. OH!” James shouts just as Sirius is getting ready to hang up, so loudly that Sirius jumps.</p><p>“What?”</p><p>“Decided on a bachelor party plan! Pack your bags for…” He attempts a poorly executed drumroll sound with his mouth, “Las Vegas! You’ll come, right? Even if the Pope has to cover for you or whatever?”</p><p>“Oh, James,” Sirius laughs. “I wouldn’t miss it.”     </p><p> </p><p>-*-</p><p> </p><p>Father Albus – the Bishop Sirius trained under – used to jokingly refer to confession as ‘A Priest’s Russian Roulette’. “You never know what you’re going to hear, son,” He’d say to Sirius, and then relay stories of everything from murder confessions to complex adultery plots straight out of a daytime soap opera. That’s the part of taking confession Sirius enjoys.</p><p>The part he doesn’t enjoy…</p><p>“It’s like I can’t help it, Father,” The young man says tearfully through the partition of the confessional. His tone is low and hushed, as if he can’t bear to hear himself say the words aloud. “Every day I try, I try <em>so hard</em>…”</p><p>“I know,” Sirius says reassuringly, his own voice only a little louder than the man sitting opposite him. And then – because it will mean more, and because Sirius truly believes it – “God knows.”</p><p>“What do you do with a sin you can’t seem to overcome?” The man asks. His voice is desperate now, desperate for something Sirius alone cannot provide him.</p><p><em>Question whether or not it’s actually a sin</em>, Sirius wants to say. <em>Question what is a sin. Question if sin really exists. </em></p><p>“What do you think you should do?” Sirius asks, and it’s such a cop-out, such a bullshit response, but it’s all he can bring himself to say.</p><p>“Keep trying, I suppose,” The confessor responds. “Keep praying.”</p><p>Sirius doesn’t answer immediately, doesn’t quite know how to answer, if he’s honest (and he’s not, always).</p><p>“The thing is, Father,” he continues, “It doesn’t always feel wrong, in the moment. I know it should – I know it <em>is </em>– but most of these guys…they’re so <em>nice</em>. It just feels like – well, it feels normal, I guess.”</p><p>Sirius feels his dinner start to crawl back up his throat. He wants to run, to throw open the doors of the confessional and give this man a hug, hold him close and tell him <em>it is normal, beloved. Normal and sacred and special. </em>He can’t, though. He knows he can’t. He takes a deep breath and places his hand over his heart, where he can feel the outline of the medallion hung around his neck through the thick cotton of his robes. <em>Guide me</em>, he thinks. <em>Take me</em>.</p><p>“God does not work only here,” Sirius says, voice calm and sure and coming from somewhere deep within him. “God is with us always. So when we feel what we feel – shame, or fear, or normalcy even – God is there too. Do you understand? Do you understand that God loves you, even there?”</p><p>It’s not what he wants to say. It’s not what he’d want to hear. But it’s what he has.</p><p>“I guess so,” The man responds. He sounds confused, but louder still. Clearer.</p><p>“It’s…” <em>okay, so okay, so blessedly, beautifully okay…</em>“God loves you there, too.”</p><p>A pause. Lighter now.</p><p>“So…” The man says expectantly, “What should I do about it, Father? What penance?”</p><p>“Oh,” Sirius responds, always somehow forgetting this part. “Right, yes. Why don’t you just…just think on it. Pray about it.”</p><p>He never could quite bring himself to prescribe Hail Marys and Our Fathers, always felt like a caricature of himself whenever he tried. If there was a formula for deciding how to dole them out – ten for lying, thirty for stealing, eleven hundred for voting Republican – he never figured it out. So he prescribes prayer, mostly, or acts of charity, or general kindness, and hopes the parishioners don’t talk amongst themselves enough to figure him out.</p><p>Of course, he should know by now that isn’t true.</p><p>When he gets back to the rectory that night, it’s later than he’d intended. Confessions spike around certain times of the year, Halloween being one of them. “It’s all the ghosts and ghouls,” Albus told him, “gets people thinking about their own”.</p><p>For a moment, he considers changing his clothes, filling his motorcycle with enough gas to carry him the forty-mile trek to Duncan, and dancing through enough of the night to bring him back to himself. He calls it an early night instead, crawling into bed and hoping his own ghosts leave him alone tonight.</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p><strong>Rectory:</strong> Also known as a clergy house or a parsonage, a rectory is a building attached to or near a church designed to house the priest or pastor of the church. </p><p><strong>Confessional:</strong> A kind of large box or cabinet divided into two sections for the purpose of the Catholic sacrament (religious ceremony or ritual) of confession. Most commonly, the priest sits on one end and the confessor on another, so that they do not have to see each other's faces.</p>
        </blockquote></div></div>
<a name="section0004"><h2>4. Justification</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Summary for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
            <p>Lily and Remus are both a little...obsessed.</p>
          </blockquote><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>Hello, my friends! This chapter, we get to meet Lily! I've not included Muslim terms in the glossary because I am pretty sure all the terms I've used here are relatively commonly known, but if you would like me to add them in the future, please let me know. Content warning for very minor, very brief exploration of Christian complicity in slavery/anti-Blackness. </p>
<p>Stay well! Thank you for all the lovely comments, they really brighten my day. Re: updates, I'm still doing twice a week, but I'm keeping the chapters pretty short because there's a lot ~going on~ in this fic.</p></blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Tiny wisps of Lily’s bright red hair peek out from the edges of the underscarf below her sunny yellow Hijab, which dips slightly lower and lower down her forehead the further she hunches over the giant, leather-bound tome.</p>
<p>“Ahhh, this if fucking <em>hopeless</em>!” She screams, slamming it shut so furiously it creates a gust of leather-scented wind that rustles all the other papers on the table.</p>
<p>“Um, Lil,” Remus says cautiously, “Don’t let me tell you how to live your life or anything. But, um, I’m <em>pretty </em>sure you aren’t supposed to slam priceless Arabic texts–”</p>
<p>“<em>Fuck off</em>, Remus!” She squeals, pushing her chair out from the breakfast table in her and James’s kitchen. She goes rummaging through the refrigerator for something she apparently doesn’t find, then returns to the table and strokes the cover of the large book apologetically. “Sorry,” She says, and Remus is unsure if she’s talking to him or the book.</p>
<p>“Lily,” Remus says sympathetically, covering Lily’s hand with his own. “Don’t you think you’re pushing yourself a little too hard on this one?”</p>
<p>Lily takes a deep breath. “I know it seems that way,” She says, calmer now (thank God – an angry Lily is not a Lily to be messed with, Remus knows very well by now). “It’s just, I <em>know </em>it’s here. I <em>know </em>it. I need to find it. For the dissertation,” She tacks the last sentence onto the end, as if trying to steer attention away from something else.</p>
<p>“But maybe,” Remus begins delicately, “Not <em>just </em>for the dissertation?”</p>
<p>She smiles up at him ruefully. “Maybe not just for the dissertation, no.”</p>
<p>“Listen, Lily, I get it,” Remus says, digging through his own messenger bag for something. “I mean – I know it’s not the same – but I know how it feels to just want to find…<em>something </em>that makes you feel like you belonged in your religion all along, you know?” He dips his head inside the bag, rummaging more intently. He lets out a little ‘ah’ when he finds what he’s looking for, extracting a slightly worn chocolate bar. “Like, my great-great-grandparents were slaves, right? So I’ll be reading all this Paul nonsense – ‘Slaves, be obedient to your masters’ and all that bullshit – this was the stuff used to <em>justify </em>their enslavement, and sometimes it’s like, so what am I still doing here?” He unwraps a large piece of the chocolate he knows Lily loves and passes it to her. “It makes me want to find something to disprove it, to prove that Christianity was on their side all along.”</p>
<p>Lily takes the chocolate graciously and gives Remus a warm smile. “It <em>was</em>, Remus. It still is.”</p>
<p>“I know it is. And you’ll find what you’re looking for too, Lil! I just…don’t want to see you make yourself crazy doing it.”</p>
<p>Lily chews slowly and looks at Remus, several things passing behind her eyes. “You’re a good friend, Remus,” She says sincerely. “James – I mean, and I love the man, you know that – but he doesn’t quite get it in the same way.”</p>
<p>“He wants you to be happy,” Remus shrugs. “He just doesn’t like watching you struggle, is all.”</p>
<p>“I know he doesn’t. I just don’t think he quite understands <em>why </em>I need to struggle.”</p>
<p>Remus nods. He stands and walks to the sink to fill the electric kettle with water, knowing a pot of green tea will make Lily feel instantly better. “I don’t think he gets why everyone doesn't just leave it all behind, like he did.”</p>
<p>“To be fair, we would have probably left it all behind too, Remus, if…you know…” Lily makes a knowing face at Remus, who raises his hand to his chest in response.</p>
<p>“<em>Lily</em>,” Remus says, playing at offended. “We do not disparage the white culture! It has given us many valuable things! Like…Justin Timberlake. And <em>ketchup! </em>Lily, you <em>love </em>ketchup.”</p>
<p>Lily laughs loudly. “I <em>do </em>love ketchup.”</p>
<p>“Actually,” James says, entering through the kitchen door carrying several precariously balanced bags of groceries in his arms, “Ketchup was created in China. Americans just added the tomatoes.”</p>
<p>Remus rolls his eyes and quickly moves to retrieve a particularly perilous-looking paper bag from James’s arms. “Don’t mansplain, James.”</p>
<p>“Yeah,” Lily adds, also taking a couple bags from James and giving him a quick kiss on the cheek. “Don’t mansplain.”</p>
<p>“Moony,” James says, dropping the remaining bags on the kitchen island and beginning to unpack them, “Why is it that you spend more time with my fiancé than with me? You’re going to make me think you like her <em>better</em>.”</p>
<p>“I <em>do </em>like her better, James,” Remus responds, preparing the teapot with fresh jasmine leaves. “That fact has never been in dispute.”</p>
<p>“You only say that because you’ve known her longer,” James says, mock-pouting, before attempting a chancy behind-the-back move with the gallon of milk, which drops onto the kitchen floor but thankfully does not break. “Also because she’s superior in every way,” He adds, bending over quickly to retrieve the milk and hoping Lily – who has her back to them and is placing groceries inside the open fridge – missed the whole ill-fated maneuver.</p>
<p>Remus laughs for several moments at his delightfully dorky best friend before removing the water when it reaches just the right temperature and pouring it into the tetsubin Lily received from her advisor as an engagement present. </p>
<p>“Right then,” James says, clapping once. He points at Remus. “Moony. How’s about joining Lily and I for dinner in Brookhaven? We’re taking my brother out for some good Southern barbeque.”</p>
<p>“Pretty sure barbeque is not halal, Jamesie,” Remus teases, knowing full well Lily would be more than happy to simply have chicken.</p>
<p>“My lovely fiancé,” James retorts, bringing his arm aggressively around Lily, who is greedily pouring herself a cup of the still-steeping tea, “<em>Understands </em>my religion, Moony. She respects my deeply spiritual need for slaughtered pigs and cheap beer. It’s called being in a <em>mature </em><em>adult relationship</em>.”</p>
<p>“Uh huh,” Remus responds dryly. “Well as much as I’d love to witness such maturity, I’m seeing Benjy tonight.”</p>
<p>“You <em>should</em> meet him eventually,” Lily says. “You’ll like him, I think.”</p>
<p>“Aw, Lily,” Remus responds as if gearing up for a gushing speech. “I don’t like anyone. I don’t know why he’d be special.”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>-*-</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Remus brings flowers because he is not a monster. He helps with dinner because he is a kind, caring partner. He pretends to know the difference between a cabernet and a merlot because he wants to be fucked.</p>
<p>“You see?” Benjy says, swirling his wineglass as he speaks. “It’s a bit more delicate.”</p>
<p>“Mmm,” Remus agrees, taking another sip of his and tasting…wine. “Yeah, definitely.”</p>
<p>Remus likes Benjy. Obviously, he likes Benjy – he is dating the man, after all – but he’d be lying if he said their relationship is much more than sexual and platonic. Benjy is trying at the romantic tonight; lit tapers in between the two of them and a home-cooked meal complete with a wine pairing Benjy actually <em>thought </em>about, and the flowers Remus brought along placed carefully in a vase over the mantle. It’s all very sweet.</p>
<p>Theirs is a relationship with a lot of space built in. Benjy isn’t in town much, he travels often for his job which is…something in business. Or finance. Or engineering. He travels a lot. And when he is in town, he usually reaches out to Remus and they share a nice meal or a movie or a trip to an art museum, and then they fuck. They go weeks without seeing each other – months even – sometimes not even talking outside of that aside from a quick “was just thinking of you” text, and it’s lovely. Really, it is.</p>
<p>Remus just doesn’t quite feel the need to try to make it into something it’s not, and this bottle of wine probably cost more than his weekly salary.</p>
<p>Still, he pretends to savor it, all the while knowing he couldn’t tell it apart from a bottle of five buck chuck is his very life depended on it. Benjy knows the difference, probably chose this specific bottle of wine from a selection of…a lot of bottles of wine, with this particular meal in mind, with Remus in mind. Which is, again, very sweet, and Remus tries to convey his appreciation as he kisses Benjy up against the kitchen countertops, having interrupted him mid-washing up. He thinks maybe he can still taste the wine on Benjy’s tongue.</p>
<p>“Let’s take this to the bedroom,” Benjy whispers to him, which is either a coy way of telling Remus he wants to fuck or a polite way of telling Remus he doesn’t want his penis near Benjy’s dishes.</p>
<p>Fair. And either way, he doesn’t protest, letting Benjy guide him backwards down his wainscoted hallway to the master bedroom. Benjy begins unbuttoning Remus’s shirt and Remus – his tastes being less refined, all around – moves to cup Benjy through his perfectly creased slacks. Benjy hisses through his nose at the contact and pushes Remus backwards onto the bed.</p>
<p>“What do you want?” Remus finds himself asking, watching as Benjy undoes his own leather belt.</p>
<p>“Um,” Benjy responds, cocking his head to the side and a little thrown off by the question. “You?”</p>
<p><em>Right</em>, Remus thinks. Right. Their encounters are more vanilla, more slow caresses of hands and tongues and less rapid-fire groping and carnal fucking; less <em>what do you want </em>and more <em>so like last time, but faster, because I have an early meeting</em>.</p>
<p>Which is <em>fine</em>, Remus tells himself, pushing himself onto his elbows to assist Benjy in disrobing. And it is fine. He takes Benjy into his mouth and sucks him slowly and then Benjy sucks him slowly and they both get off just fine, coming with loud grunts and a perfectly respectable amount of pleasure.</p>
<p>It’s just, Remus isn’t quite there the whole time. He’s <em>there</em>, it’s his cock and mouth, but he can’t quite bring his mind fully into the room. It’s still – fuck, he really needs to get a fucking grip on this – back with <em>him</em>, back being swallowed whole and rimmed and fucked against the wall of the back room at Griphook. Benjy’s body is a little more muscular, a little shorter, and Remus finds himself shutting his eyes to keep from thrusting into Benjy’s throat. It’s shame that he feels, mostly, when he can’t help but picture <em>him </em>as he climbs closer and closer to climax, can’t help but pretend Benjy is begging him to come, begging him to milk his cock, begging him to get hard again…</p>
<p>“You okay?” Benjy asks, pulling Remus from his own thoughts as they lay snuggled up against each other in Benjy’s unreasonably comfortable king-sized bed.</p>
<p>“Yeah–yes,” Remus responds quickly, chastising himself. He’s not like this, normally, respects the damn institution of ethical non-monogamy and <em>doesn’t </em>picture other men when he’s got a perfectly sweet, perfectly hot, perfectly lovely man in bed with him. “Sorry, just a little distracted.”</p>
<p>“Yeah, I can tell,” Benjy says, no hint of resentment to his voice. “Thinking about some dark, mysterious stranger?” He jokes.</p>
<p>It’s been a week and three days now. Remus is counting.</p>
<p>Well fuck.</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p><strong>"This Paul nonsense": <em></em></strong> The Apostle Paul - responsible for penning many books in the New Testament - is widely known for having a lot to say on such controversial topics as slavery, women in ministry, and sexuality. This is because he is terrible. (Just kidding. A lot of people really love Paul. <em>You</em> can really love Paul. But Remus and I don't care for him.) The passage Remus refers to here was widely used to justify slavery in the USA.</p>
        </blockquote></div></div>
<a name="section0005"><h2>5. The God Thing</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Summary for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
            <p>Sirius doesn't lack quite as much as others think he does.</p>
          </blockquote><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>Just a quick chapter to give us a bit more insight into Sirius's life. The exposition is built right into the chapter on this one, so no glossary this time.</p>
<p>Thank you all for your sweet and curious comments. Just as a reminder, if you ever have a question you want me to answer in more detail, pop over to my Tumblr and put it in an ask. I'll answer it with more information than you ever even remotely wanted. You can find me there @BubbeBruja. Stay well, my friends!</p></blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Sirius Black is married to The Lord.</p>
<p>Well, technically, he’s married to The Church.</p>
<p>Okay, the logic goes like this: The Church is a woman, and a damn powerful one. The bride of Christ, she is, except Christ is God and God is Everything and Everything can’t have a wife. But Christ can, because he is human. And also God. Who is Everything and also nothing but mostly three things in one.</p>
<p>You follow so far, right?</p>
<p>Christ is a man and the church is his bride. It’s a metaphor, but it’s also not. When the church came into being, Christ married her, and she became The Bride of Christ. (Like, the Bride of Frankenstein, or the Bride of Chucky, but for God.)</p>
<p>Got it? </p>
<p>A priest is a man (yes, always a man) who agrees to dedicate his life to The Lord™ and The Church™ and in so doing agrees to live <em>in persona Christi</em>, which is a pretentious Latin way of saying “like Christ”. Christ was celibate (you know…maybe), and also married. To The Church, remember? A priest – in agreeing to live <em>in persona Christi </em>– also agrees to marry The Church. Not <em>literally </em>(although you could argue that the sacrament of ordination looks an awful lot like the sacrament of marriage, but that’s a discussion for another time), but a man, once married, cannot marry again, and thus: Sirius Black is 29, horny, and in a monogamous marriage to The Church.</p>
<p>He’s fine with this.</p>
<p>No really, he is.</p>
<p>Growing up, he had one example of marriage. His parents wore their wedding rings like battleaxes. Walburga’s – an engagement ring of a giant pear-shaped diamond within a setting of clustered emeralds, and a wedding ring of a solid platinum band with tiny black diamonds imbedded around its middle – graced her elegant, long fingers even when they left scratches on her children with every touch (and perhaps even because of it). Orion’s – solid platinum that might as well have been iron for its size, thick and glistening and visible from space – was, for all Sirius knew, stuck there, imbedded in skin that grew around it, like he did around the impositions of having a family. Theirs was a marriage for show, a huge, grotesque thing that might have been forged in love once but grew and grew and swallowed everything whole, so that all that was left was the permanence of its being. Their marriage was ironclad, bedrock, and not because it was grounded in anything real. But it was grounded in the realest thing Walburga and Orion Black could conceptualize: ornament. They couldn’t escape their marriage if they wanted to, for theirs was a picture frame of platinum and embedded diamonds, too expensive to risk coming up against the edges of.</p>
<p>Sirius’s marriage isn’t like that. He can leave, if he wants to.</p>
<p>But, he doesn’t want to. And not just because – like Walburga, really – he has nowhere else to go. He is bound to this thing, this thing that is so much bigger than him, and it holds him <em>in</em>. Together, it keeps him, adhered to himself and his life and a damn <em>purpose</em>, even, a reason for living.</p>
<p>And then there’s–</p>
<p>Well, there’s–</p>
<p><em>Hail Mary, full of grace, the Lord is with thee. </em>A morning ritual, the first thing he tries to do when he wakes. <em>Blessed art though among women, and blessed is the fruit of thy womb,</em>– not knelt beside the bed, like a child before sleeping – <em>Jesus.</em>– but however he woke up (usually on his side, as he sleeps). <em>Holy Mary</em>, with his eyes shut, <em>Mother of God</em>, and his focus on here and now and this, <em>pray for us sinners, now and at the hour of our death. </em>And he crosses himself, four points across his chest, and no one’s watching at this hour.</p>
<p>
  <em>Amen.</em>
</p>
<p>But he does it anyway. And that’s – if he’s honest, (and he is, sometimes) – the real reason he stays.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>-*-</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“It’s a God thing,” He says. And that’s the end of the conversation, usually, his sign that he’s communicating something he can’t speak in words and he’d prefer not to try.</p>
<p>“But I don’t <em>get it</em>,” James says, emphasizing the last two words with his forkful of pulled pork.</p>
<p>“James, would you leave the poor thing alone?” Lily interjects.</p>
<p>“Yeah, no offense, Prongs, but I didn’t move closer to you just so you could pester me.”</p>
<p>“But I don’t <em>get. it.</em>” James says again. “How does it not make you crazy? Don’t you <em>miss </em>it?”</p>
<p>“Honestly?” Sirius replies, tearing his Texas Toast and using it to sop up some of his baked beans. “Not really. You’d be surprised how long you can go without it.”</p>
<p>James heaves a heavy, dramatic sigh. “I don’t think I’d last a week.”</p>
<p>“James, love,” Lily says, placing a placating hand on his shoulder, “You wouldn’t last a <em>day</em>.”</p>
<p>“I just…” James says around a mouthful of creamed corn, “How can the church not have <em>wifi</em>!”</p>
<p>“There’s just no need!” Sirius responds, for the third time in this particular discussion. “We don’t use it during services. The church secretary works from home most days, and when she’s not, she just uses her phone’s hotspot. Which is what I do.”</p>
<p>James nearly spits out his food. “A <em>hotspot, </em>Pads?! What is this, Stalin’s Gulag? Your data usage must be…<em>astronomical</em>!”</p>
<p>Sirius has no choice but to put his head in his hand and laugh. James is the most high-maintenance person Sirius has ever met, and he’s from <em>California</em>.</p>
<p>“Moving on,” Lily says, much to Sirius’s relief. “So, one of these weekends, James and I thought we might take you on a little nightlife tour of Duncan. It can’t compare to LA, of course, but we’ve got some decent places! There’s a cocktail bar James likes – what is it, The Three Candlesticks? – and there’s some live music venues – oh! And there’s Griphook, it’s this bar on old main street – kind of a club, I guess. Mostly draws the queer and alternative crowds, you’d like it!”</p>
<p>Sirius takes a slow sip of his sweet tea and tries not to look too startled.</p>
<p>“I’ve actually, um, I’ve been there.”</p>
<p>“Been where?” James asks, apparently just returning to the conversation after the shock of the no wifi discovery.</p>
<p>“Um, Griphook,” Sirius responds, and makes an effort not to look away from them. “Just a couple times.”</p>
<p>“Oh!” Lily says with faux nonchalance, something dawning on her that plays out across her bright green eyes. She looks at James, and they share a silent moment of communication known only to them. “Well, then, we’ll just take you to the other places.”</p>
<p>“Yeah!” James agrees, voice a bit too cheery. “Yeah, we’ll show you a good time.”</p>
<p>Sirius’s smile takes a great deal of effort, and even then comes out more like a grimace, but they let the topic pass and are discussing tie colors for the groomsmen before no time.</p>
<p>When he crawls into bed that night, it takes him longer than normal to settle down. The feeling in his chest is not guilt, and that’s important. It’s not shame – the thing that settles in his throat sometimes, less often now (thanks, therapy), and creates a sensation somewhere between nausea and little jolts of electric shock – but lower, just above his diaphragm. It doesn’t crawl so much as it claws, and it doesn’t burn so much as it squeezes. He thought it was love, once, before he knew better and after he learned that love wasn’t necessarily the thing that stung and burned the way his parents love had. But it’s something like longing. Not for someone, not even for something, but for…expansion. It’s not an emptiness, if anything it’s the opposite. It’s as if he longs to burst open, to explode, to fill the universe with a vastness he couldn’t muster alone. It’s as if he longs to become a supernova, become so much bigger than a containable thing in the act of destruction and creation and everything in between. And in that tug – that clawing, squeezing, longing feeling –</p>
<p>A God thing.</p>
<p>So maybe it is love, after all.</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0006"><h2>6. And, Not But</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Summary for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
            <p>It's Halloween, and all Remus wants is to see a ghost.</p>
          </blockquote><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>Hello, my friends! A quick note for those who have been asking: I know we've gone several chapters without any smut. It's weird for me, too, but hey! We've got a world to build here! There's a bit next chapter, and then a whole hell of a lot more a few chapters after that. Patience, young grasshoppers.</p>
<p>Stay well! Merry Christmas to those who celebrate!</p></blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>The problem is not that Remus has fallen for a stranger. Remus falls for a stranger at least biannually, and even then, he tends to come back down from his gay rainbow love fantasies with a highly necessary reality check. People are just people. And while some of the strangers Remus has fallen for in the past have turned into fulfilling, loving relationships, many have just as quickly fizzled. It’s fine, he gets over it. That’s not the problem.</p>
<p>The problem is that he has no idea how to find the stranger.</p>
<p>Admittedly, not making a point to get his name was his first mistake. It’s not as if the man avoided giving it, it’s just that he didn’t offer it. You have to ask for the things you want, Remus knows by now, and he didn’t ask. And – normally – that’s fine, because someone who will fuck a man they’ve just met in the back room of a queer bar is usually someone who frequents queer bars. And, <em>fuck</em>, did that man ever know what he was doing.</p>
<p>But it’s been two weeks, and Remus hasn’t seen him.</p>
<p>Which is not to say that Remus is there every night, desperately hoping to run into the man with beautiful tattoos and piercing eyes and a - <em>fuck - </em>an amazing fucking tongue. But it <em>is </em>to say he’s been there more often than usual. He’s had some lovely hookups since, but there’s been no sign of the stranger.</p>
<p>Remus is sure tonight will change that, though; as sure as he is that Mr. Hagrid will bring a homemade baked good to fellowship hour every week and it will be near inedible, or as sure as he is that his cat will sun himself on the screened-in porch just as dusk hits, or as sure as he is that James will forget his parents’ birthdays if Remus doesn’t remind him.</p>
<p>Tonight is Halloween. And – for queers, and you <em>know </em>you can’t disagree – Halloween is Prom, the Oscars, and the premiere of a Kristin Stewart movie all in one. Halloween? Is <em>everything</em>.</p>
<p>Remus loves being queer. Remus hates Halloween.</p>
<p>But fuck it. He’ll pull the expired blue eyeliner from the back of his bathroom cabinet and pre-game with a couple shots to tamp down the social anxiety of dealing with Halloween crowds and attempt a half-assed Hedwig costume – for love. For love, he will brave Halloween.</p>
<p>But at five minutes to midnight, he is regretting his decision. He’s crowded into a corner talking to Marlene’s girlfriend, Dorcas, who is dressed in an only semi-ironic Billie Jean King costume and sipping her third vodka cranberry of the night to compensate for liking large crowds even less than Remus does.</p>
<p>“<em>What does he look like?” </em>Dorcas signs to Remus.</p>
<p>“<em>Black hair</em>,” He signs back, and not knowing the specific sign, fingerspells, “<em>Tattoos.</em>”</p>
<p>“<em>Hot</em>.”</p>
<p>Remus laughs. Dorcas is easily the horniest person Remus has ever met, and he's fucked three different people this week alone.</p>
<p>“<em>He’s not here</em>,” Remus signs, shrugging in a way that he hopes conveys indifference rather than disappointment.  </p>
<p>“<em>So find someone else</em>,” Dorcas signs, and when Remus doesn’t quite understand (it having been several years since he studied ASL in undergrad), she mimes fucking someone from behind – complete with emphatically sexual facial expressions – and spills a good deal of her drink in the process.</p>
<p>Remus slaps her playfully on the shoulder but they both giggle. Find someone else. It’s simple enough, and he could. He’s been propositioned more than once tonight by people he’s hooked up with before. But his heart’s not it in, and that matters to Remus, so he resolves to give up and return home and jerk off thinking of long black hair and tattoos.</p>
<p>He says goodbye to Dorcas – who lets him know her thoughts on his leaving her alone with a hand gesture even hearing people understand – and pacifies her by offering to get her another drink before he leaves. For reasons that aren’t any of Remus’s business, she’s agreed to stay until Marlene’s shift ends, and Marlene is currently scrambling behind the cramped bar trying to keep up with all the drink orders. Remus squeezes in between two drag queens dressed like Dolly Parton and tries to avoid their rather ample chests while he waits patiently for Marlene to get to him.</p>
<p>As he waits, Remus feels someone else brush up against him as they too attempt to squeeze in between the throngs of people, and – okay, this is going to sound impossible – but Remus <em>swears </em>he smells him before he sees him. Sandalwood and musk and tobacco. Sex.</p>
<p>He turns towards the scent just as a warm hand grips him around his forearm, and it’s cliché and thoroughly absurd, but the room narrows and the music gets quieter and the hand on his forearm – just a <em>hand</em>, for Christ’s sake – feels so unbelievably good his cock perks up inside his denim cutoffs.</p>
<p>“Hey,” The man says to him, screams really, because the room is actually still quite loud. He grins at Remus. He makes eye contact with Remus. Remus is going to pass out.</p>
<p>“Hi,” Remus says back, and fine, he’s not going to <em>actually </em>pass out, but he is rather dizzy.</p>
<p>“Buy you a drink?” The man asks.</p>
<p>“Actually, I was just…” But then he remembers that he was leaving because he couldn’t find the person he was looking for, and the person he was looking for is now running his thumb gently over the inside of Remus’s wrist, so, “Yeah, thanks. Whiskey sour.”</p>
<p>The man nods in acknowledgement, and as if on cue, Marlene is there, leaning over the bar to hear the order the man gives her. Remus would be offended (she’s not so much as looked in his direction and they’ve been friends for five years) but he’s too busy watching the way the man’s mouth moves when he talks. Water – he is reminded of again – moves like water.</p>
<p>They stand in a silence that is a little awkward given how they are literally surrounded by people, and when Marlene brings their drinks (faster than anyone else has received theirs, mind you), the man looks around and then points in the direction of the door that leads to the patio. Remus nods and leads the way to the small porch used almost exclusively for smoking, finding it surprisingly empty. They take a seat at one of the small picnic tables and it’s only then that Remus realizes that this is…weird.</p>
<p>“Aren’t you cold?” Remus asks. The man is wearing nothing but a short-sleeved V-neck and it is 45 degrees at most.</p>
<p>The man swallows a sip of his drink and then shakes his head. “No.”</p>
<p>Remus chastises himself internally. He is sitting across from one of the most beautiful people he has ever seen – a person who has, quite literally, been inside of him – and he has <em>actually </em>just brought up the weather.</p>
<p>“Where’s your costume?” Remus asks, and it accidentally sounds aggressive. “I mean, it’s Halloween. You’re supposed to be in costume, and you’re not wearing one.” That didn’t sound any less aggressive.</p>
<p>This man, though, just smiles at him, sips his drink and appears nothing but entirely comfortable. “What are you talking about?” He asks playfully, then motions down his body at his all black ensemble. “I’m clearly a cat.”</p>
<p>“Where are your ears?” Remus asks, trying for flirty this time.</p>
<p>“Oh, I don’t have ears anymore. An alley cat bit them off in a brutal street fight.”</p>
<p>“So, you’re a feral cat?” Remus asks, and can’t help but smile.</p>
<p>The man makes a show of sighing very deeply, as if thinking back on something significant. “I had an owner once. A lonely spinster type – you know – but then her children put her in a home and, well, what’s an ownerless cat to do? Take to the streets, of course.”</p>
<p>“You’ve put a lot of thought into the backstory of this supposed ‘cat’.”</p>
<p>“I take my costumes very seriously.” His face – this man – beautiful and emotive and interesting. Remus is drawn in, pulled into to the magnetic field of this stranger, this man whose name he doesn’t even know, and–wait.</p>
<p>“What’s your name?” Remus asks.</p>
<p>“Sirius,” He says back easily, as if wondering what his name might be hasn’t kept Remus up the past three nights in a row.</p>
<p>“That’s…” Remus begins, “Interesting.”</p>
<p>“It’s weird,” Sirius says back, smiling that comfortable, amiable, <em>beautiful </em>smile. “You can just say it – it’s super weird.”</p>
<p>“I can’t really comment on weird names,” Remus responds. “My name’s Remus.”</p>
<p>Sirius cocks his head a little. “Like the character in Roman mythology?”</p>
<p>Remus nods.</p>
<p>“How did your parents come up with that?” Sirius asks, twirling the ice cubes in his glass with his long fingers. His tone isn’t accusing, isn’t mocking, is just genuinely curious, and Remus is – for some reason – a little thrown off by it.</p>
<p>“My mom heard the name when she was young and just liked it. My dad objected, because it wasn’t biblical, but in the end, obviously, she won.” The words spill out of Remus’s mouth easily and it’s only when he’s done speaking that he realizes he has <em>no idea </em>why he’s answered honestly. He’s often asked where his name originates from, and he almost always pretends that his parents were Roman mythology enthusiasts and chose the name accordingly (a boldfaced lie, considering he sincerely doubts that either of his parents even knew such a thing existed).</p>
<p>But Sirius just smiles, like he was expecting the answer, like he wants to drink in every detail about Remus’s life. It makes Remus feel naked.</p>
<p>“And yours?” He asks, shifting a little in his seat. “Is it spelled like the adjective or the star?”</p>
<p>“The star,” Sirius responds, and leaves it at that. He reaches across the table, touches the back of Remus’s hand gently. Remus flips it over, giving Sirius his palm, on which Sirius begins tracing tender little designs with his fingertips.</p>
<p>Remus knows exactly nothing about astronomy and is vigorously digging through the archives of his mind anyway, searching for something to say that is relevant or interesting or remotely related, because he is – <em>fuck</em>, he’s <em>nervous</em>. The realization hits him all at once, smacks him in the face like a gust of cold wind because he’s not been nervous around a romantic interest in…in years, really. It was a choice he made, a deliberate one, one that sought to reject a lot of ingrained things at once and now he’s destabilized again, thrown off and self-conscious and…and <em>horny</em>, too.</p>
<p>“I’ve not seen you around much,” Remus says quickly, because he needs to reclaim the space, assert his territory, justify his existence, <em>something</em>.</p>
<p>And Sirius – fuck him right now, honestly – just <em>smiles</em>. Doesn’t give Remus anything, just looks him right in the eye and smiles and it’s – fuck him, truly – <em>infuriatingly </em>gracious. It’s not dismissive or condescending or phony. It is interested and kind and <em>still not a fucking response </em>and Remus wants to <em>swallow </em>that smile. Wants to lick it right off his face.</p>
<p>“You come here a lot,” Sirius finally says, has the <em>audacity </em>to make it a statement instead of a question. It’s not an accusation, but Remus wants it to be, because he’s still so fucking nervous and he’d like to be angry with this man. Angry enough to take him against a wall, force him onto his knees again, angry enough to make him fuck Remus with the same fervor and passion and intensity he did last time. He continues tracing over Remus’s palm with his fingers, leaving patterns that Remus can feel travel through his entire body.</p>
<p>“What makes you say that?” Remus asks, for some reason.</p>
<p>“People admire you here,” Sirius says, shrugging and bringing one leg over the picnic table bench to straddle it (as if Remus isn’t already thinking enough about straddling things, namely Sirius). “I just noticed that they look at you a certain way. Like you’re someone they trust.”</p>
<p><em>Why have you been paying attention to the way people look at me? <strong>When </strong>have you been paying attention to the way people look at me? </em>“Fuck me.”</p>
<p>Whoops.</p>
<p>The smile drops from Sirius’s face, actually slides off of it like melting ice cream. Something somber takes its place, something thoughtful and sincere and maybe a little disappointed, too.</p>
<p>“I can’t,” He says, and slowly pulls his hand away from Remus’s.</p>
<p><em>He’s married</em>, Remus thinks immediately. <em>He’s straight or in a relationship or just doesn’t want you, Remus, it’s just you and you should be okay with that, he doesn’t owe you anything and you don’t owe him anything and it’s his fucking choice, Remus Lupin, so why are you being so fucking–</em></p>
<p>“I want to.” Sirius’s voice cuts into his thoughts, and he realizes he’s been staring at the table, flitting his eyes back and forth from one end of it to the other. He looks up at Sirius, who looks back at him so earnestly it almost actually hurts. “And I can’t.”</p>
<p><em>And I can’t</em>. <em>And</em>, not <em>but</em>. The phrasing strikes Remus as odd, and then it strikes him as odd to be focusing on the phrasing at all.</p>
<p>“Oh,” He says.</p>
<p>“It isn’t you,” Sirius responds, reaching for Remus’s hand again. Remus pulls it away instinctively, draws it back into himself as if away from a flame. If Sirius is hurt by this, he doesn’t show it, just places his own hand back in his lap and looks at Remus with something very gentle. “You’re so lovely,” he says quietly. “And I can’t.”</p>
<p>
  <em>"And". Not "but". </em>
</p>
<p>And then Sirius stands, looks at Remus with something like fucking <em>adoration </em>and goes back inside. The encounter is so quick and confusing and unexpected that Remus just stares at his own fingers for a few minutes, feeling something like anger or sadness or jealousy or…disappointment. That’s what it is. It’s coming down from a gay rainbow love fantasy. Only this time, the fantasy felt different. Blacker and sweeter and closer, too. The thing that begins to bloom in his chest now is new, claws at him like a cat and squeezes around his heart. It’s...it's longing.</p>
<p>He takes out his phone and texts Dorcas a quick apology for not returning with her drink. (She’ll ghost him for a few days and then forget anything ever happened.) Then he opens a new message to James.</p>
<p><em>Need to get out of town</em>, he writes. <em>Vegas can’t come soon enough. </em></p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0007"><h2>7. Daddy Issues</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Summary for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
            <p>Remus and Sirius both explore their own kind of daddy kinks, with very different results.</p>
          </blockquote><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>Hello, my sweet friends! I have a few CWs for this smut-heavy chapter: First, for the first half of this chapter, we have a pretty strong daddy kink. It's not added to the tags, because I'm not sure it will come up again, but if that's a no-go for you, please feel free to just skip the first half! For the second half, we have some conversation about the...less pleasant aspects of the Catholic church, including brief, indirect discussion of child abuse (in passing, with no references to individual trauma). </p><p>Thank you, thank you, thank you - as always - for the continued love and support. Stay well, and take care of your dear selves.</p></blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>“So help me God, Remus Lupin, if you don’t fuck me <em>right this very instant</em>, I’ll–”</p><p>“You’ll what?” Remus teases innocently, stroking the reddened skin of Tonks’s beautiful, round ass. “You’ll beg me for it?”</p><p>“<em>Fuck you</em>,” They hiss through clenched teeth, teetering on the edge of breaking free of their bonds completely and collapsing directly into them.</p><p>“You want to fuck me?” Remus asks, the smug smirk evident in his voice.</p><p>“Fuck you!” Tonks screams again. They’re thrusting their hips back and forth helplessly, desperately seeking some sort of attention aside from the light, easy strokes Remus continues to lavish on their sore bottom.</p><p>“Okay. Later, If you’re good.”</p><p>“Remus!” They shout, voice reaching that near-breaking point where it will tip from violent defiance to obedient desperation. “Fuck…you…fucking…<em>asshole</em>…” Tonks pulls against their bindings, raising one knee at a time into awkward little backwards kicks that Remus avoids easily.</p><p>“Shhh,” Remus coos, the head of his needy cock leaking a dribble of precum onto the bedsheets. He loves when Tonks is like this – right on this precipice – loves how much they fight it and fight it and then finally give in, love how free it makes them feel, love being able to create freedom out of thin air. “I know.”</p><p>“Fuck you…you don’t…you fucking…” And then their voice trails into a gurgle, as Remus brings his palm down hard against their ass once again. “<em>Remus.</em>”</p><p><em>Almost</em>.</p><p>“Yes, baby,” He says, thrusting his hips a little into the air to trick his cock into thinking it’s getting some sort of relief. He’s so turned on he’s a little dizzy, a little drunk on the power of being asked to push someone until they break. He slips into this role much easier now, much quicker than he did when they established this particular dynamic and with much less reticence. “That’s it. Let go now.”</p><p>“<em>Remus</em>.” Tonks’s voice is small now, childlike almost, towing the line between hyperaware and entirely absent. Remus keeps his hands firm on their hips, steadying them. “Remus, please…”</p><p>
  <em>Almost…</em>
</p><p>“Yes,” He soothes, “I’m here. Let go. I’ve got you.”</p><p>“Re–” They trail off, bringing their forehead to the space on the bed in between their outstretched, bound arms. Looking, searching, and then finally allowing themselves to just wander, freely, and then, “<em>Daddy</em>.”</p><p>
  <em>There.</em>
</p><p>“Yes, baby,” Remus praises. “Daddy’s here. Are you ready for daddy to touch your cock?”</p><p>“Pussy,” Tonks says hazily, turning their head bashfully against the bedspread.</p><p>“Pussy,” Remus corrects himself easily, Tonks’s preferred language changing regularly. “Are you ready for daddy to touch your pussy?”</p><p>Tonks nods, a small, sheepish movement of their head accompanied by a tiny, cautious smile.</p><p>“Are you ready for daddy to make you feel good?”</p><p>They nod again, an indulgent little thing that reminds Remus of the movement his cat makes against Remus’s pant leg when he wants to be scratched behind the ears.</p><p>“Use your words,” Remus instructs gently, as he begins trailing the pad of his index finger down the crevice between Tonks’s ass cheeks.</p><p>“Please, daddy.”</p><p>Remus inserts two fingers into Tonks’s pussy slowly, shutting his eyes when they involuntarily clamp around him and releasing a low, indulgent moan.</p><p>“You’re so wet for me,” Remus says, removing his fingers and using the accumulated lubrication to brush gently up to Tonks’s clit, which he strokes under his finger, just at the hardened tip.</p><p>“Please play with me,” They plead, rocking into Remus’s hand.</p><p>“How do you want me to play with you, baby?” Tonks looks positively irresistible, wrists no longer pulling against their restraints and ass sticking straight up in the air. Their half-lidded eyes blink heavily, indicating they have sunken down into the place where they no longer feel the need to do anything but what is asked of them.</p><p>“Rub my…my clit…” Tonks says, stumbling over the words a bit. “Please make me feel good, daddy.”</p><p>Remus can’t help the throaty growl that leaves him all on its own, but doesn’t let it distract him. He continues his small, gentle circles over Tonks’s clit. “I’m going to make you feel so good, baby,” He promises. “How do you want me to play with you? Do you want daddy to touch you differently? Do you want daddy to rub you harder? Tell me, baby. Tell me what feels good.”</p><p>Tonks keens, high in their throat, something Remus recognizes as embarrassment and fear and lust and want and – and freedom. All at once. “Harder, please. I want it harder.”</p><p>Remus increases the pressure on Tonks’s clit, keeping his circles small and concentrated. “Like that?”</p><p>“Mmhmm,” Tonks moans, hiding their face in the bedding and rocking into Remus’s hand with abandon. Hiding helps them feel safer, freer – makes them feel the way a child does when they hide under the covers, they once explained to Remus, like even the knowledge that they are still fully visible can’t shake them from the feeling of complete security – and allows them to shift their hips in tiny, erratic movements, taking exactly what they want.</p><p>Remus won’t come, not during this encounter. He’ll bring Tonks to orgasm over and over again, until they let Remus know they are done, and then he will untie them and pull them close to his chest and let them doze for a while, safe in his arms. He’ll get off later, when he gets home, with the sounds of Tonks’s moans in his ears and the feel of Tonks rocking against him in his bones and the weight of being trusted so implicitly in his belly. <em>Daddy</em>, he’ll hear roaring in his ears, <em>daddy daddy</em>, and then he’ll let go too.</p><p> </p><p>-*-</p><p> </p><p>“Forgive me, Father,” He croons, looking up at Sirius through long, blonde eyelashes, “For I have sinned.”</p><p>Sirius very deeply regrets telling this man what he does for a living.</p><p>“Oh,” Sirius responds, “Let’s maybe not–”</p><p>“It has been twenty-one years since my last confession, and I need to do <em>penance</em>.”</p><p>Fuck’s sake.</p><p>“Listen, this isn’t really my–”</p><p>“I think I need to…” He moves forward on his knees, reaching for Sirius’s crotch, “Partake of the flesh.”</p><p>“Nope. No.” Sirius takes a step back, and the man – just about to undo Sirius’s fly – loses his balance and nearly falls flat on his face. Instinctively, Sirius lunges to catch him. “Sorry,” He says, mostly apologizing for stepping back so abruptly, but also for telling this man – Cedric, apparently – about being a priest. And also for not being willing to engage in this particular kind of scene. And also for a multitude of other things he can’t quite put his finger on. “I’m not…this isn’t really a kink I’m comfortable with, okay? I’d appreciate it if we could do something else.”</p><p>Cedric rises to his feet and crosses his arms, shrugging in a kind of ambiguous agreement. He leans casually back against the wall, and Sirius moves towards him, cupping the back of his neck as he leans in to kiss Cedric’s thin, pink lips. “<em>Forgive me, Father</em>” cycles through his head over and over until it morphs into a dreadful chorus. He leans further into the kiss, bringing his other hand to Cedric’s waist and squeezing, feeling the warm flesh under his fingertips and letting it quiet the chorus a bit.</p><p>“I just,” Cedric says, pulling back from the kiss, “I don’t quite understand how you can do that.”</p><p>“Do what, <em>this</em>?” Sirius says sensually, grinding his hips into Cedric’s. A familiar, comforting surge of electricity moves through his body, beginning in his cock and ending at the top of his spine.</p><p>“No,” Cedric responds, closing his eyes as Sirius moves his lips to suck on the skin below Cedric’s ear. Cedric begins a sentence that trails into a moan when Sirius starts slowly rocking his hips. “Be a priest,” He finally squeaks.</p><p>Sirius stills a little but chooses not to let up, nipping at Cedric’s earlobe instead. “Nine years of schooling,” He responds casually, hoping <em>desperately </em>that’s what Cedric means and ignoring his gut feeling that it very much is not.</p><p>“No,” Cedric confirms, though he thrusts harder into Sirius, lining their cocks up perfectly and eliciting a moan from both of them. “I mean, like, ethically.”</p><p>Sirius stills completely now, sighing into Cedric’s neck and closing his eyes. “What do you mean?” He asks, not at all wanting to hear the answer.</p><p>Both their minds a bit clearer now, Cedric stops seeking the friction between them and straightens up. So apparently, they’re doing <em>this</em>, now. “I mean, don’t you care about women? And gay people? Aren’t you pro-choice?”</p><p>What Sirius would really like to do is put Cedric’s cock in his mouth. What Sirius would really <em>not </em>like to do is discuss the political ideologies of the entire Roman Catholic church. So what Sirius does is step backwards, cross his arms protectively over his chest, begin digging at the floor with the tip of his right boot, and says nothing at all.</p><p>“I mean,” Cedric continues, derision creeping into his voice, “How can you, like, be <em>here</em>?” He motions to the space around him, presumably indicating not literally the living room of a relative stranger, but a bigger <em>here</em>. A metaphysical <em>here</em>. A <em>here </em>with a lock and a key and a secret passcode and a membership fee. A “you don’t belong here” <em>here</em>. And it isn’t that Sirius doesn’t know the answer, or that he hasn’t considered it extensively, or that he doesn’t know how to word it. It’s that he doesn’t like the implication that he has to explain himself.</p><p>“I don’t really want to talk about this,” He says as gently as possible, shrugging. It’s not quite the truth – not the whole of it, anyway – but his cock has now gone completely flaccid and he’s beginning to feel entirely out of place.</p><p>Cedric scoffs, a sharp thing that cuts through Sirius’s chest. The beast that lives there – nauseous, electric shame – begins to spill out. “That’s convenient, isn’t it? So, what, it’s okay to get off with gay men but not to think they deserve any basic human rights?”</p><p>“That’s not…” Sirius begins, but stops himself. This conversation isn’t about him anymore, it’s about what he represents. It’s about a concept so much bigger than himself that he is entirely eclipsed by it, might as well not be here at all, and the vitriol beginning to color Cedric’s voice isn’t personal. It’s trauma, that voice, pain and anger and resentment at something that Sirius will never be able to adequately explain away. It has <em>nothing</em> to do with him. And that makes it so much worse.</p><p>“I guess I just don’t understand where you get off kink-shaming <em>me</em>, when <em>you’re </em>the one who doesn’t respect himself enough to leave an institution that’s condemned us all to hell.”</p><p>They’ve veered so far off course now that Sirius knows they won’t find their way back. Cedric’s words sting, of course, but not as badly as Sirius’s own unblinking eyes, which stare fixedly at a blemish in the hardwood floor beneath him.</p><p>“Hell,” Cedric continues, laughing humorlessly, “How do I know you’re not regularly molesting altar boys?”</p><p>“I try to only molest adults,” Sirius responds without moving his gaze, and it’s a <em>terrible </em>joke, truly, but it tumbles out of his mouth nonetheless.  </p><p>“That’s not funny,” Cedric says, and he’s right. It’s not. It’s not funny at all. So, naturally, Sirius has to smile. And it’s <em>so </em>not funny that he begins to laugh, a snicker at first that grows into a chuckle and then becomes a bit hysterical, a bit frightening even, which is why he heads for the front door all on his own.</p><p>“I’m gonna go,” Sirius says by way of explanation. “Thanks for the drink.”</p><p>If Cedric protests, Sirius doesn’t hear it over the sound of the buzzing in his own head. He pulls his jacket from the coat rack and doesn’t bother putting it on until he’s safely closed the door behind him. He stuffs his hands into his pockets and walks zombie-like through the hallway of Cedric’s midrise, waiting until he’s safely behind the closed elevator doors to pull out his phone and open a message to James.</p><p><em>Fuck everything right now</em>, He types. <em>Vegas can’t come soon enough. </em></p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0008"><h2>8. What Happens Here: Part I</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Summary for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
            <p>Vegas: part one.</p>
          </blockquote><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>Hello, my dears! Finally, Sirius answers some tough questions (well, sort of). The only content warning I have for this chapter is that men can be real douche-canoes. There's a few things said in this chapter (by neither of our dear pairing) that would have me straight up nope-ing out, but my tolerance for douchebaggery is low. And they are in Las Vegas, after all.</p><p>Anyway, happy new year sweet readers. And just a tip, Las Vegas is a shit show. Not in the chapter, just in general. Go to NOLA instead. (I don't know why these southern idiots didn't just do that. Then again, I wrote it, so that's on me.) That's my tip for 2021.</p><p>EDIT: Friends! I mistakenly said before there were no real CWs here, but I am now realizing I failed to mention a content warning for alcohol/drinking/inebriation. I sincerely apologize.</p></blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>When the trip finally rolls around, it’s six weeks until Christmas and six months until James and Lily’s wedding. Remus has been in a bit of a mood – restless and pouty and a little unbearable, probably – and has been spending the majority of his time alone or with Lily, helping her grade papers or compiling potential resources for her latest conference submission. He’s feeling, for the first time in a long time, like something is lacking, like there is a gaping space that he can’t seem to fill. He finds the feeling annoying, more than anything, and while his process so far has been to ignore the feeling, James Potter’s process has been to interrogate him about every possible matter of heart and mind and intellect, so Remus has been - well, not <em>avoiding </em>James, per se, but…</p><p>Fine. He’s been avoiding James.</p><p>Which is why the plane hasn’t even taxied from the gate yet before James is prying him with mimosas and not-so-subtle questions about his love life. By the time they touch down in Las Vegas five hours later, Remus is tipsy and James is crying (“I just <em>love you</em>, man,” he keeps saying over and over again). James manages to pull himself together by the time they meet Gideon and Fabian Prewett at the taxi stand (and good thing, because the twins have arranged a surprise limousine for James, which has him crying all over again) and when they finally pull up to their hotel, Remus is already feeling happier than he has in weeks.</p><p>The four of them walk through the unnecessarily grand lobby on their way to the check-in counter, which itself is solid marble bracketed on either end with statues of Roman men posed stark naked. At the sight of them, James nudges Remus and wiggles his eyebrows, eliciting only a groan from Remus before he goes back to looking at his phone.</p><p>“So, mate,” Gideon says. (Or…Fabian says. The two make a point to switch outfits at least once a day just to keep people on their toes.) “I’m not complaining, I’ll take any excuse to get sloshed. But, can you explain why we’re having a bachelor party like half a year before your actual wedding?”</p><p>“I’ve <em>told </em>you already,” James says, dropping his duffle bag to the floor with a <em>thunk </em>that indicates he has packed more than clothing and toiletries. “You assholes just don’t listen to anything but the voices inside your own heads.”</p><p>“Sorry, what?” They both say at exactly the same time, cupping their ears. Remus smirks, still staring down at his phone.</p><p>“Lily wants him to get it all out of his system,” Remus says by way of explanation.</p><p>“What, she thinks that if you stare at enough tits now you’ll be okay with only staring at hers for the rest of eternity?” Fabian asks. Or…Gideon does.</p><p>“Don’t talk about her like that,” James says more seriously than he probably meant to. The Prewetts are fun to have around, but they’re crude at the best of times. “No, it’s like, a religious thing. And it was my choice. Come the new year, I won’t be drinking alcohol. In preparation for the wedding.”</p><p>“Damn, mate,” One of the Prewetts says, “You’re gonna get married stone cold sober? I’d never make it down the aisle.”</p><p>“Yeah, well some of us aren’t stuck reliving the golden days of freshman year for the rest of our lives,” James replies, before a young woman with platinum blonde hair motions him forward. Remus, Gideon, and Fabian stay behind.</p><p>“So, Rem,” Gideon says (he’s 99% sure it’s Gideon). “You’re familiar with all this religious shit. Why’s Lily forcing our boy to go all Anita Bryant for the wedding?”</p><p>“It’s a show of solidarity, jackass,” Remus responds, mostly playfully. “Muslims don’t drink. He’s trying to prove that he respects her religious choices. And, for the record, Anita Bryant drank like a fish.”</p><p>Fabian and Gideon shrug in unison and spend a few minutes roughhousing around the mock Trevi Fountain before James returns with room keys for all of them.</p><p>“We have a penthouse suite,” James says, handing a key to Remus. “Mary Kate and Ashley, you’re sharing a room. But the rest of us have our own.”</p><p>“Hey!” They both protest.</p><p>“What if one of us wants to get laid?” Fabian asks.</p><p>“Yeah,” Gideon agrees, “How am I supposed to pull with <em>this </em>ugly bastard around?”</p><p>“No one will be getting laid,” James responds, holding up a single finger, “That’s rule number one.”</p><p>“There’s <em>rules</em>?” The Prewetts ask.</p><p>“Yes,” James responds, “There’s rules. Number one, no sex inside the suite. I need my beauty rest. Number two, no hard drugs. And number three,” He turns pointedly towards Remus, who looks up with an expression of mild interest, “You must participate in each night’s planned activities. Got it?”</p><p>Remus nods.</p><p>“Okay, so, to clarify,” Fabian asks, “We can fuck in <em>other </em>people’s rooms?”</p><p>“Yeah,” Gideon follows, “And define ‘hard drugs’?”</p><p>James pointedly ignores them both. “Peter should already be here. My brother’s plane should be landing in a couple hours.” He heaves his duffle bag back onto his shoulder. “Ready, gentlemen?”</p><p> </p><p>-*-</p><p> </p><p>Remus liked Peter from the moment they met. James met Peter in law school, and by the time he finally got around to introducing Peter to Remus, Remus had heard so much about him he felt as if he knew the man already. He’s quieter than most of James’s friends – much like Remus himself – more of a follower than a leader, and that’s just fine with Remus, because James is leader enough for the rest of them. With the Prewetts involved, the five of them walk down The Strip like a group of A-list celebrities, James and the Prewetts drawing so much attention to themselves that it somehow manages to compete even with the flashing lights of the casinos and the men dressed like robots.</p><p>“They aren’t even drunk yet,” Peter murmurs to Remus as the two of them walk a bit further behind, hoping others won’t assume they’re all together.</p><p>“Oh, once they start drinking, we’re going to need to find some way to make ourselves invisible,” Remus responds, just as James chooses to leapfrog over a parking meter. </p><p>“You know,” Peter says, choosing to ignore the mild applause that erupts when James sticks the landing, “I’m kind of surprised you even came on this trip. Las Vegas doesn’t really seem like your kind of thing.”</p><p>“It’s entirely the opposite of ‘my kind of thing,” Remus responds, stuffing his hands in his jeans pockets. It’s colder than he was anticipating. “But I knew James wasn’t going to let up until I agreed. You know how he is once he sinks his teeth into an idea.” Peter nods emphatically. “Besides, he’s paying.”</p><p>They reach the restaurant at five after seven – still late, even though Remus practically forced them out of the hotel room at least fifteen minutes before James was intending on leaving – and are shown to their table immediately. The six-top is bracketed up against a gigantic tropical fish tank, and Remus and Peter share a brief conversation about the sustainability of keeping aquatic animals alive in the middle of a desert before enough shots arrive to inebriate a small village.</p><p>“I see we’re taking things slowly tonight,” Remus says sarcastically, as James and the Prewetts knock two back in rapid succession. Peter reaches for one himself, and passes one to Remus, who declines.</p><p>“Think I’ll try to actually look at the menu first,” He says, shrugging off his jacket.  </p><p>“Interesting strategy,” Fabian responds, downing another. His Australian accent is thickening already, and by the end of the night, it will have encroached so thoroughly into both of the brother's voices that no one will be able to understand what they’re saying.</p><p>James checks his phone, eyes going wide. “OOoohhH!” He coos, entirely too loudly. (He’s always been a lightweight. He’ll be wasted by the time the appetizer comes.) “Sirius is here!”</p><p>Remus has just barely registered the familiarity of that name when something dawns on him that somehow manages to make his heart sink into his bowels and leap right out of his throat at the same time.</p><p>“Wait,” He says, sitting straight up, “Did you say…”</p><p>“Gang’s all here!” A voice from behind Remus says, and – no, really, and Remus is certain of it because he’s entirely sober this time – that scent. That same exact scent. It reaches his nostrils over the competing smells of cigarette smoke and roasting meat, lands right inside his sinuses and damn well moves in there.</p><p>“Heyyyy!” James cheers, rising quickly from his seat and throwing his hands straight up in the air. Remus is as frozen as the proverbial deer in the headlights, and watches only peripherally as James and Sirius embrace like they’ve not seen each other in ten years, patting each other on the back in that weirdly aggressive way men do.</p><p>“You remember the Bobbsey twins,” James says, arm around Sirius as he motions to each person at the table, “And Peter, of course. And <em>finally</em>,” Remus startles as James claps him on the back, “<em>This </em>is the elusive Remus Lupin!”</p><p>Remus looks up slowly, as if there is still somehow a chance that two men with the same exact name and the same exact scent exist in the world, a hope that is dashed as soon as Remus looks the man in the face, because – those <em>fucking lips</em>.</p><p>“Ah,” Is what erupts casually from those perfect lips, “So <em>you’re </em>the one I’m competing with for the Best Man title.”</p><p> </p><p>-*-</p><p> </p><p>The kitchen is either extremely backed up or Remus has fallen into some version of hell, because the amount of time they sit at that table must be at least three times the amount he’s ever spent at any meal, ever.</p><p>Or maybe it just feels that way because he keeps forgetting how to breathe.</p><p>The universe is not so cruel that Sirius ends up sitting next to him, but he sits across from Remus instead, bumping elbows with James in a display of a kind of brotherly closeness that has Remus feeling – if he’s honest – a little jealous. The two of them share inside jokes and appetizers and all-knowing glances between them, meanwhile Remus keeps his hands in his lap and participates in the conversation just enough to not raise any suspicion. He nearly throws his back out trying to avoid eye contact with Sirius, who for his part seems to be avoiding looking at Remus not one iota, and on the exactly four occasions the two of them make eye contact before the entrees come, Sirius might as well be a complete stranger to him. He looks at Remus with something that is at once extremely warm and entirely casual, as if Remus is nothing more or less than his brother’s best friend.</p><p>It’s disorienting to a near distressing level. Such a level, in fact, that Remus’s own thoughts keep getting caught on a tangle in the middle of one of the Prewett’s anecdotes, carried away on the silver trays the cocktail waitresses use to deliver Mai Tais and poker chips. He can barely form a cohesive sentence for all the cartwheels his memory is trying to land, complex tumbles of <em>did James ever mention him by name? </em>and <em>what would James think if he knew?</em>, clumsy gymnastics of trying to piece together facts and photos and stories from James’s childhood, and that’s when something he knows for sure snaps firmly into place. The relief of its certainty is so comforting to Remus that he doesn’t so much as consider if anyone else is speaking before he cuts in.</p><p>“You’re a priest,” He says, looking straight at Sirius. The statement sounds so factual it’s odd even to his own ears, and all five faces at the table turn to look at him, Peter’s hands still mid-gesture.</p><p>“Um,” Sirius responds, confused but not at all thrown. Fucking ass. “Yeah, I–I am.”</p><p>The two of them stare at each other for much longer than a single second, which Remus knows because he begins counting, more for the sake of giving his screaming mind something to do.</p><p>“I talk about you a lot – you know, to Remus,” James interjects, apparently picking up on the awkwardness of the interruption even several drinks in to the evening.</p><p>“Sure,” Sirius affirms, nodding at James. His tone has flipped into something intentionally neutral. He turns back to look at Remus, placing his palms on the table as if to prove he’s unarmed. “And James has told me you’re a minister? I’d make a joke about Protestants, but…”</p><p>Sirius trails off with a halfhearted chuckle, and Remus isn’t smiling at all. He can feel Peter looking between them as if trying to figure out if he’s entirely imagined the sudden tension, but Remus doesn’t so much as flit his eyes away from Sirius’s face. Something has begun to burn behind his eyes, and he can’t tell if it’s because he hasn’t blinked in too long or if it’s something else entirely. Sirius looks right back, appears as though he’s about to say something fucking <em>sincere</em>, but Fabian saves them just in time.</p><p>“Can priests drink, mate?” He asks James, and his tone betrays that he’s not picked up on anything remotely out of the ordinary. “Or are we corrupting a man of the cloth?”</p><p>“We can drink,” Sirius responds, but he doesn’t pull his eyes away from Remus until several moments later, when he finally looks at Fabian instead. “Despite how much enjoyment you two delinquents <em>would </em>get from corrupting a priest.”</p><p>“Damn,” Gideon plays along. “Guess we’ll have to revert to our original plan, eh, Fab?”</p><p>“Hookers it is,” Fabian responds. “Got a gender preference, mate?”</p><p>“We’ll just send up one of each,” Says Gideon.</p><p>“An excellent solution,” Says Fabian, clapping his brother on the back. He turns to Sirius. “We’re equal opportunity here, gay pride and all o’ that.”</p><p>The two of them snicker shamelessly at their own rather sophomoric humor, but Sirius joins in happily, continuing the line of banter in a direction Remus has entirely no knowledge of. His brain has stopped processing auditory stimuli, it seems, because all he can make out is James saying something that has the twins doubled over, and Sirius throwing his head back, and Peter nearly snorting beer through his nose, so he chooses this particular moment to excuse himself silently to the restroom where he will seriously consider flushing himself down the toilet.</p><p> </p><p>-*-</p><p> </p><p>By some miracle on the order of loaves and fishes (and a bit of tequila, too), Remus survives dinner. Gideon and Fabian suggest they stop for a quick game of Blackjack on their way to the next activity, which James rebuffs on Sirius’s behalf.</p><p>“Gambling’s a bit iffier on the Acceptable Activities for A Priest scale,” He explains to the twins.</p><p>
  <em>Kind of like ass-fucking a stranger in the back room of a gay bar? </em>
</p><p>“Oh, don’t mind me,” Sirius responds, clouded with some kind of faux-easiness that…might, very annoyingly, not be faux at all. “I can always watch from the sidelines.”</p><p>
  <em>Kind of like how you apparently participate in queer liberation? </em>
</p><p>“Don’t be silly,” Peter says very genuinely, a trait Remus normally covets and now finds unreasonably irritating. “We wouldn’t want to disrespect your beliefs.”  </p><p>
  <em>Kind of like by…ass-fucking a stranger in the back room of a gay bar?</em>
</p><p>Needless to say, by the time they reach their next destination – a rave club, believe it or not, though James has never once expressed even remote interest in such things – Remus is just a tad to the left of fuming and just a tad to the right of tipsy. When James, Peter, and the twins head directly for the dance floor, Remus heads directly for the bar, a decision he is quite confident in until he realizes he has company.</p><p>“Sorry if seeing me came as a bit of a shock,” Sirius says, angling his mouth so it’s much closer to Remus’s ear than any part of him other than his cock would have liked.</p><p>“Yeah, well one of us certainly appeared a bit more put out than the other,” Remus replies, deliberately avoiding eye contact and instead staring at the bright neon bar menu above their heads.</p><p>“I’d figured it out already,” Sirius replies, staring directly at Remus. Remus whips around to interrogate Sirius, but he holds up two placating hands. “James updates his Instagram like every twenty minutes. The plane wasn’t even at the gate before I realized who you were. Was actually wondering why I’d never seen you in his pictures before.”</p><p>“James knows I don’t like…how did you even…how have I never…” His head is spinning a little bit, just a slight wobble, but he has no interest in feeling any less out of control than he already does, so he finishes his sentence without any sense of completion and gives silent thanks to the bartender who interrupts them to take their order. When she returns with their drinks, Sirius follows him to a two-top as far away from the noise as Remus can muster. Remus has no intention of talking to Sirius, really. Nothing above small talk, at least. Certainly nothing <em>real</em>, or <em>serious</em>, or–</p><p>“So how do you defend it? Like, to yourself?” Remus asks, sidestepping every single one of his own plans. He’s drunk. Not so drunk that he wouldn’t be having this conversation otherwise, but drunk enough that the words come out easier.</p><p>“The sex, you mean,” Sirius responds, doesn’t even pretend not to understand, doesn’t even phrase it as a question.</p><p>“Yeah,” Remus nods, taking a seat on the barstool opposite Sirius and wobbling a bit in the process. “Like, celibacy is kind of…<em>a thing </em>with y’all.”</p><p>Sirius laughs, and Remus doesn’t know if it’s at the question or the way his Appalachian accent creeps into his voice when he’s been drinking. “’<em>A thing</em>’,” Sirius parrots. “Yes, I suppose it is.”</p><p>“Listen,” Remus says, slurring the word just a little. Maybe he’s drunker than he thought he was. “I understand the need to…” He mouths “fuck” to Sirius, who throws his head back in laughter, so that his neck is completely exposed and his Adam’s apple juts out, and Remus wants to bite into it, wants to see if he can suck the juice from it and let it drip down his chin. “But you’re supposed to resist it. Right?”</p><p>“In theory,” Sirius says, a bit more thoughtful now.</p><p>“I mean, it’s not a judgement…”</p><p>“It is,” Sirius says simply – no anger, just fact. And, okay, yes…</p><p>“It is, you’re right.”</p><p>Sirius smiles at him and brings his drink to his lips. They’re both silent for a moment, taking in their surroundings, and Remus can’t help but notice the absurdly muscular Patrick Swayze lookalike who’s been ogling Sirius since the moment they sat down.</p><p>“Do you think God created us to not enjoy sex?” Sirius asks suddenly, eyeing Remus curiously.</p><p>“I – of course not.”</p><p>“Do you think God created us to resist the urge to have sex?”</p><p>“No! But I’m not–”</p><p>“Do you think God created queer people to feel shame and pain and embarrassment and deprive ourselves of all the things that make us feel good?”</p><p>“You’re…that’s obviously not what I’m saying…” Remus suddenly feels very defensive, very put upon, as if he wasn’t the one who’d started this line of conversation to begin with.</p><p>“It is. It is what you’re saying.” Sirius’s voice is matter-of-fact, but it’s a little strangled too. “Because if you believe – like I do – that God created us this way, then you wouldn’t ask me why I don’t resist it.”</p><p>Remus is struck completely silent, completely out of a response. The room is spinning right along with his head, and something else inside his head buzzing, and it’s…</p><p>“But you’re a <em>priest</em>.”</p><p>“And you’re a minister.”</p><p>“I didn’t…I didn’t make a <em>vow</em>…” That’s not even the argument he wants to make. What does he care of vows? What does he care of any of it? Why in the name of Jesus Christ Himself is he so <em>angry</em>?</p><p>“Sure you did,” Sirius says and he’s – fuck – he’s as calm as anything. “Of course you did. You agreed to follow Jesus as the head of the church,” He begins counting off on his fingers, “To follow Scripture, to embody the confessions of your denomination, to lead your congregation in the way of Christ…”</p><p>“But you took a vow of <em>celibacy</em>, specifically. I never did. I never promised–”</p><p>“You promised to accept the Scriptures. To use them to guide you, did you not? And you chose to mean that the way you wanted it to – to love your neighbor and preach acceptance and justice and all that. But that’s not what they meant. They meant you to find a wife and make babies and never think twice about any of it.” Remus wants to protest, is practically <em>shaking </em>with it, but the truth is – in its most basic form, in the form he has fought so hard to see beneath and below and beyond – Sirius isn’t wrong. “You made the same promise I did. They just never spelled it out for you.”</p><p>“I…” Remus is so mad he can feel it bubbling up in his stomach, crawling up his esophagus. “I never promised <em>not to fuck</em>.”</p><p>And Sirius – this beautiful, horrible, infuriating man – has the gall to <em>laugh</em>. “Okay,” He says, smirking, and swallows the last dregs of his drink. “So how do <em>you </em>defend it? How do you explain to your congregants how fucking strangers in dark rooms is leading in the example of Christ?”</p><p><em>I don’t</em>.</p><p>“I…fuck you! This isn’t about me!” Remus shouts, loud enough that even in this space it turns a few heads.</p><p>“And it’s not about me, either. It’s not about either of us. It’s about rules that were decided long before either of us were even born.”</p><p>Remus is tall enough that his feet touch the floor even from a barstool. But he can’t feel them. He can’t feel his feet or the floor or anything solid whatsoever. He feels like he’s losing an argument he didn’t even fully intend to join, like the stakes of the argument are so high that losing isn’t an option even if he had consented to it, so he reaches for the closest thing he can grasp. He reaches for the kind of truth that has lived in his gut since he first found a name for the things he now embodies, the things Sirius…doesn’t. Can’t. <em>Won’t</em>.</p><p>“Queer people have always existed. Even in the clergy.”</p><p>“Yes, they have. And they’ve always fucked too, Remus. Always.”</p><p>Remus doesn’t have a response, but it ends up not mattering anyway, because Sirius gets out of his seat with twice the grace Remus could muster completely sober and disappears into the crowd. The Patrick Swayze lookalike follows.</p><p>There’s no floor, so Remus isn’t entirely sure what it is he walks away on, straight past the bouncers at the door and out into the fluorescent night.</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0009"><h2>9. What Happens Here: Part II</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Summary for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
            <p>Vegas, Part 2: Electric Boogaloo. Alternatively: What Sirius Black is Actually Thinking.</p>
          </blockquote><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>Oh BOY, sweet friends! What a day. Two things:</p><p>One: CW for implied drug use. This chapter isn't the happiest. I'm sorry. We have to get into the reeds a little more before we can really start to explore all the depth to these characters. Will it make you feel better if I promise both our main characters a (relatively) happy ending?</p><p>Two: I need to slow down on updates a bit, just while I work on another fic that's due at the end of this month. That means once weekly updates for the next few weeks. Thank you in advance for your patience.</p><p>As always - and this is going to get redundant, but I really, truly mean it - THANK YOU for your comments, kudos, messages, Tumblr follows, etc. I'd tell you you're special and I love you, but, you know, SOMEONE went and ruined that for us. A quick thanks to @Torrhen_Yair for the quick beta and reassurance on the first half of this chapter. Stay well, loves.</p></blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Sirius Black – conqueror of LA, the foster care system, and the priesthood alike – is only marginally ashamed to admit that he is rather afraid of flying.</p><p>It’s not the height, it’s the distance. Humankind wasn’t meant to travel thousands of miles in a matter of hours, and if we were meant to fly, God would have given us wings. (That argument falls apart completely, of course, when one considers cars. Or medicine. Or peanut butter. Or any modern invention. But just let him have this one.) When he moved cross-country, the parish offered to pay professional movers to drive his possessions the 2,500 miles to his new home and fly him out separately, but he declined, citing clergical frugality. Instead, he hauled himself, a mid-size Penske, and everything he owned through nine states, six thunderstorms, and eight hundred ProLife Across America billboards.  </p><p>So – all things considered – his flight to Las Vegas wasn’t all that bad. He’d intended to fly with James and James’s best friend (who he, upon reflection, knew only by his nickname), but had to take a later flight due to a scheduling conflict with his substitute. The flight had been smooth and he’d taken full advantage of the two Valium Lily gifted him for just such the occasion. And then? He landed.</p><p>He turned his phone off airplane mode and sent a quick text to James letting him know he’d arrived safely. And then he attempted to pass the time and his lingering aviation-related anxiety by flipping rather mindlessly through his Instagram stories. And then he spilled a full bottle of water down the front of his shirt.</p><p>“Well fuck me up the ass,” He mumbled without meaning to, eliciting a rather disapproving stare from the woman sitting next to him. “Sorry,” He apologized to her. “Work conflict.”</p><p>Which was…sort of true, actually. He had <em>rules</em>. And he had them for a reason. Sex was one thing. Friendship was another. And love? Love was–</p><p>And then he fumbled his phone right out of his fingers and had to wait until the plane came to a stop at the gate before retrieving it.</p><p>He pulled himself together well. He’d had a lot of practice at pretending to be entirely unbothered by things that actually bothered him a great deal. He made it through dinner, and conversation, and intended only to apologize to Remus for appearing so…well, entirely unbothered. But then the gorgeous, brilliant, un-fucking-believably sexy human had to go and <em>ask </em>him <em>questions</em>, and…</p><p>So, Sirius is afraid of a few things other than flying.</p><p>He didn’t have a plan. He followed Remus to the bar with the intention of apologizing and maybe buying him a reconciliatory drink and then joining his other friends on the dance floor. But then Remus…well, he spoke, is really what happened. He spoke in sarcasm and short, flustered little snippets and Sirius would have dropped to the floor and <em>licked </em>it if that’s what it took, if that’s what would have kept Remus talking. He followed Remus to a bar table and looked him in the eye for the first time that night – actually in the eye, not at the spot in the middle of his forehead, the spot he learned in seminary made the listener think you were looking them in the eye while allowing you to not lose your composure – and that’s the precise moment he knew.</p><p>He was utterly and completely fucked.</p><p>Because now, he couldn’t pretend anymore. He couldn’t intentionally avoid knowing his name, or fuck him from behind to avoid making eye contact, or keep to his rule – his <em>rule</em>, which he has for a <em>reason </em>– and never have sex with him again. And the reason he knew that last bit, in particular, was because Remus met him.</p><p><em>Met </em>him.</p><p>You see, Sirius Orion Black has a lot of sex. <em>A lot </em>of sex. More than most people, maybe, which is not an impressive feat until and unless you consider that Sirius Orion Black did – he <em>did </em>– promise not to. Promises didn’t mean a whole lot in the Black family, which is precisely why promises mean so much to Sirius, and precisely why Sirius made this particular promise the way he did. He doesn’t keep the promise, strictly speaking. That much is clear. He fucks. He married The Church, and yet he cheats on her, sometimes every single day.</p><p>But he does not abandon her.</p><p>He does not break <em>that </em>promise. He loves her so hard – so intensely and intently and profoundly – that he does not love anything else quite the same way. And that? He’s okay with. That’s the marriage. That’s the thing forged in love, that has grown and grown and become so much more than ornament. That’s the thing he could leave, but doesn’t.</p><p>Sex is just sex. It’s connection, okay, and it’s pleasure, yes, and it’s maybe even its own kind of love – netted, contained, patented in a single moment – but it isn’t the same thing. He doesn’t let it be. That’s the rules.</p><p>The rules work. They’ve always–well, they’ve <em>mostly</em>…they’ve…</p><p>And then Remus met him. Dragged him into that familiar place – “so, how do you defend it?” – and then closed the door with both of them inside. Walked right up to him in that room, and blocked the exit. The exit’s been blocked before, many times even, and Sirius has always found a way out anyway. But not this time. Because Remus couldn’t quite answer, either. Remus – whether he realized it or not, and Sirius is betting on not – locked them both in. And there, in that locked room, trapped and held hostage by things he didn’t ever intend to let trap him, Remus met him. Sat down next to him. And Sirius is familiar with the room for what it is – just a space, just four walls and a ceiling. But Remus isn’t, quite, not in the same way. For Remus, the room is a cage. And so he paced, raised his hackles, flicked his tail, bared his teeth.</p><p>But he met Sirius there. And that’s…new.</p><p>The room is lonely. It’s so painfully lonely that it’s desiccating, sometimes; it pulls and squeezes and siphons and shakes and doesn’t stop until it’s almost got every part of him, and he has to escape it before he is completely parched, before he completely evaporates. But with Remus there, he could stay longer. Not forever – it’s only two instead of one, after all – not even for very long. But longer. And that little bit of added time, that time spent with someone who could meet him, it…</p><p>It filled up some of the space. Some of the longing. Some of the thing he cannot name or place or speak to or reach.   </p><p>It was painful. Oh <em>fuck </em>was it painful, to be met. To be seen so completely naked. To be wrung out. But it was – for a few moments – expansion.</p><p>It began to fill him. It began to coat the bottom of the vast, empty basin deep inside him with a layer he expected to immediately evaporate, like it usually does. But this time, it didn’t. It stayed. And then it grew, inch by inch, didn’t drain away at all but crawled up the edges of the basin, so high he could almost dip his hands into it. So he did. He dipped both hands into the basin, and cupped them around the liquid, and it stayed there, too, even when he removed them. And then he had two cupped hands holding the makings of a supernova, and he didn’t know what to do with them – with it – so he just got up. He got up and walked towards the music and the lights and began to dance, cupping his hands in front of him and holding a substance that could destroy the universe. He couldn’t sustain it – his hands began to ache with the heaviness of the mercurial substance and no one person should be burdened with such power – so when someone came along behind him, brushed up against him, put his own hands on Sirius’s hips, Sirius turned towards him. And Sirius asked him if he’d like to hold half the world, and he said yes, and so Sirius poured half of it – a single fistful – into the man, who drank it through his mouth, right from Sirius’s tongue.</p><p>It wasn’t who he wanted to share it with. But it was who was there, and who was safe, and who didn’t make him want to lick the floor of a Las Vegas rave club, so he took it. Took him. Pulled him in close and tight and ignored the boring eyes of people who didn’t expect to see two men dancing so close and so tight in this space. Took him into the night, into a cab, into the hotel room he’d rented separate from the one James had provided them (for sex, specifically, not sharing a universe, but it was there all the same). Took him into his body. Not just his mouth, but his body, too, a place he hadn’t taken <em>anyone </em>in a very long time. And then he took him in again. And once more.</p><p>The man held half the universe safely. Tenderly enough. He only spilled a little bit, just over the edges. But then the sun began to rise over the mountains that become nearly eclipsed by the neon lights but are always still there, and the man handed it back to Sirius. He didn’t want to take it onward – nor did Sirius want him to – but as the man closed the door behind him, Sirius realized what he was left with. Two fists full of the thing he’d so longed for, but never really thought he would find. He panicked. He tried to wash it off in the shower, wipe it off on the fluffy hotel towel, but it would not budge. It was not so delicate as he had worried. And that was reassuring, in a way, to know the universe will not be washed away, but then he was just…stuck with it. Two fists full and nowhere to put them.</p><p>He made it back to the room he shared with the rest of the party relatively easily, just a little heavier on his feet from the added weight. He climbed under his rich, crisp bedspread just as the sun reached the neon lights, and thankfully – because God may have created the universe in a single week, but They also took a day to rest – the universe let him sleep.</p><p> </p><p>-*-</p><p> </p><p>When Sirius awakes the next morning, he has a pounding headache. He isn't particularly prone to hangovers – at least, he didn’t use to be – but the mere sound of muffled voices coming from the living room of the suite pierce his skull like an icepick. He hobbles to the en suite bathroom and splashes some cold water on his face, hoping it will at least combat the wave of nausea that overcomes him. When it doesn’t work, he climbs into the shower, and stands stock-still under the warm water for far longer than usual before pulling some clean clothes from his suitcase and psyching himself up to face…you know, the <em>group</em>.</p><p>He’s made his way into the living room when James slams the door to his own bedroom (and it’s…<em>so loud</em>) and stands in front of the couch, hands on his hips. Sirius makes a point not to look at anyone.</p><p>“Remus John Lupin,” James says, raising one accusing finger. “I know rule-following isn’t your forte, but what was the last of the three very simple rules I laid out for this trip?”</p><p>“Um…” Remus mumbles. He’s sitting on the couch with his head between his legs, and appears as if he’s feeling about as well as Sirius is.</p><p>“You must. Participate. In each. Night’s. Scheduled. Activity.” James replies reproachfully, apparently unaware that his volume rivals that of a live heavy metal concert.</p><p>“I –ticipated,” Is all Sirius can make out of Remus’s response. He pours himself a mug of lukewarm coffee from the carafe atop the room service table and pretends to be entirely uninterested in the conversation.</p><p>“Oh <em>really</em>?” James presses. “Because I spent an <em>hour </em>trying to find you with <em>no luck</em>.”</p><p>“Mate, are you aware you have the vocal pitch of a rabid hyena?” Fabian asks. He’s perched horizontally between the arms of plush living room chair, one hand thrown over his eyes. Sirius feels slightly vindicated knowing he is not the only one who feels like total garbage today.</p><p>“I told you to hydrate,” James responds. “Where’s Gid?”</p><p>“Dunno,” Fabian responds. “Haven’t seen ‘im since he climbed into the DJ booth.”</p><p>Sirius smirks and picks at a waffle. Apparently, he missed a few things last night.</p><p>“’m gonna take a shower,” Remus mutters, slowly getting to his feet. Sirius doesn’t know if Remus has noticed that he's is in the room, because Sirius is very specifically not looking.</p><p>“Oh <em>no </em>you don’t,” James says, grabbing Remus around the elbow. “You’re not getting off that easily. Explain yourself!”</p><p>Sirius finally takes a long look at the scene at hand, and it’s only then that he notices that Remus looks…a bit more than like garbage. In fact, he looks positively ill. Sirius’s stomach jolts with something that’s a bit more than worry, something that edges on panic. Remus is pale, almost yellow, and the hollows below his cheekbones appear etched out. Sirius wonders – for the thirtieth time in as many minutes – what Remus got up to last night, only now the jealous images of Remus hooking up with some other person are replaced by concern.</p><p>“I’m <em>fine</em>, James,” Remus responds shortly, yanking his arm from James’s grasp. “You’re not my keeper!”</p><p>“Well <em>someone </em>has to be, otherwise you come back looking like <em>that</em>!” James counters, as usual overprotective to a controlling fault.</p><p>Remus motions to himself. “I’m an <em>adult</em>,” He says slowly, drawing out the last word as if speaking it to a toddler. “A concept none of y’all,” He motions to the room, “Have quite yet grasped.” His eyes land on Sirius for the first time just as he bites out the last word. Sirius gets the distinct impression the insult is meant for him, specifically.</p><p>“Least we aren’t still tweaking, mate,” Fabian says with uncharacteristic sternness. Apparently everyone’s a bit testy this morning, including Sirius, who almost snaps out a response of his own before the meaning of Fabian’s words hit him.</p><p>“Wait, what?” James and Sirius say at the same time, both shooting incredulous stares at Remus. Remus crosses his arms and stares down at the ground.</p><p>“Moony…” James says, and his voice has changed completely from self-righteous indignation to genuine concern. He reaches for Remus’s arm again, this time far more tenderly, but Remus jerks it away from his grasp.</p><p>“I’m <em>fine</em>, James,” He says again. He’s still staring at the ground, and doesn’t seem – at least to Sirius – to truly believe it himself.</p><p>“You…” James tries again, pulling his own hand back, “But you…Moony, again?”</p><p>Sirius doesn’t miss the sheepish glance Remus gives James. It’s almost apologetic, and suddenly Sirius hates not knowing what’s meant by that glance. Suddenly, Sirius wishes he knew everything there was to know about Remus, wishes he’d seen everything Remus has seen and known everything Remus has known. The silence in the room stretches on for what feels like entire minutes, Remus and James communicating under the surface of bloodshot eyes.</p><p>“I’m gonna take a shower,” Remus finally reiterates, and James lets him go this time.</p><p>It startles Sirius, how much he wants to follow Remus, sink his thumbs into the hollows of his cheeks, run his fingers through Remus’s tangled curls, pull Remus into him and whisper all the things he’s never been able to whisper to anyone.</p><p>But he has <em>rules</em>. He has–</p><p>He–</p><p>He drops into the closest chair and closes his eyes, placing his palm over his chest, his heart, the medallion around his neck.</p><p>
  <em>Hail Mary, fully of grace, The Lord is with thee…</em>
</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0010"><h2>10. Aftermath</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Summary for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
            <p>Remus faces up to a few transgressions.</p>
          </blockquote><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>Hello, lovelies!! We interrupt our regularly scheduled spiritual introspection for a particularly reality-based chapter with a tiny smattering of sarcastic criticism of academia - yay! CWs for discussions of Sexually Transmitted Infections and recreational drug use. (We also get some more Lily! Double yay!)</p><p>We'll return to our smutty, angsty, spiritually introspective plotlines next week. Until then, stay well!</p></blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Remus jiggles his leg up and down nervously and picks at the cuticle of his index fingernail. It’s a habit he’s had since before he could remember, one that always leaves one of his fingernails shorter than the others, bright red and inflamed. Lily offers him her hand instead. He takes it with a grateful smile, threading his fingers through hers and grasping tightly.</p><p>He’s not embarrassed, necessarily. He’s not even ashamed.  </p><p>He’s just...disappointed. In himself. And the situation. And - well, in himself, mostly.</p><p>“Remus?” A young, short-haired woman in light pink scrubs appears in the waiting room and looks up from her clipboard. Remus takes a deep breath and then stands to follow her.</p><p>“I’ll be right here,” Lily says, squeezing his hand once more before releasing it.</p><p>Remus squeezes her hand back but doesn’t make eye contact with her before following the woman through the door leading from the waiting room into the back of the clinic. He lets her weigh him and take his blood pressure, and then she sits down in a rolling chair across from him and fixes him with a friendly, smiling expression.</p><p>“So,” She says, “What brings you in today?”</p><p>“I need to get tested,” He responds easily enough. This part is pretty routine for him.</p><p>“Great!” She says brightly. “Are you concerned about anything in particular, or is this just routine testing?”</p><p>“Um,” Remus begins, used to the latter answer. “I have some concerns.”</p><p>“Okay!” She says. Her affect betrays that she is intentionally trying to appear unfazed by his answers. “Well, I’ll just let you address those with the nurse practitioner. Let me get some history from you.”</p><p>Remus answers some routine questions about his medical history, his regular medications, the last time he was tested. Then the young woman leaves, and he begins nervously picking at his cuticles again, no Lily there to calm his distracted hands. He’s been staring at the 3D model of internal reproductive organs for so long his eyes burn when the door finally opens again.</p><p>“Hi,” The woman says as she closes the exam room door behind her. Her hair is white and pinned gracefully atop her head. She’s wearing a long, white lab coat over a simple blue dress, and she’s holding what Remus assumes is his chart against her chest. “My name’s Poppy, I’m one of the nurse practitioners here.”</p><p>“Hi,” Remus says, as she takes a seat on the backless rolling chair across from him. “Nice to meet you.”</p><p>She smiles at him, revealing a row of small, straight teeth, and takes a moment to read his chart. “So, you’re here for STI testing, and I see that you have some specific concerns. Tell me what’s concerning you?”</p><p>“Um…” Remus hesitates. He jiggles his leg a little faster, and then chooses to opt for candor, hoping it comes across as mature rather than anxious. “I had unprotected sex recently with…well, with someone who I didn’t know well. Anal sex,” He tacks on, preempting her next question. “Receptive anal sex. He ejaculated inside me…without a condom.”</p><p>“Okay,” Poppy says, jotting something down with a pen she extracts from her coat pocket. She appears entirely unfazed by Remus’s words, a fact which probably shouldn’t surprise him, given where he is at the moment. “Do you have reason to think this partner has any sexually transmittable infections?”</p><p>Remus isn’t entirely sure how to answer that: <em>I let a perfect stranger fuck me up the ass while I was high out of my mind – does that count? </em>But he doesn’t think that would be quite appropriate, so he hesitates.</p><p>Poppy picks up on his confusion. “Let me rephrase,” She says. “Did this partner <em>inform </em>you of any sexually transmittable infections?”</p><p>“Oh, no,” Remus responds, bringing his thumbnail to his mouth and chewing on a bit of loose skin. “But it’s not as if I asked.”</p><p>“I understand,” Poppy responds. She continues writing in Remus’s chart. “And how long ago was this?”</p><p>“Nine days,” Remus responds. If Poppy thinks it’s strange that he knows the exact timeframe, she doesn’t show it.</p><p>“And are you having any symptoms?”</p><p>“No,” Remus replies. “Not that I know of.”</p><p>“Do you often have unprotected intercourse?” Poppy asks, no hint of judgement to her voice.</p><p>“No,” Remus responds immediately. “I always use protection. It was an…oversight.”  </p><p>Poppy nods again, checking something off in his chart. “Do you only have male sex partners or partners of multiple genders?”</p><p>“Multiple genders,” He replies, used to these particular routine questions. She checks something else off.</p><p>“Do you currently have a single sex partner or multiple partners?”</p><p>“Multiple partners,” He replies again. Again, she checks something off.</p><p>“Do you engage in oral intercourse, vaginal intercourse, and/or anal intercourse?”</p><p>“Yes,” He replies. “All of the above. Not vaginal, so much, but sometimes.”</p><p>She nods, checks something else off, and asks him a few more questions. And then…</p><p>“Do you ever use drugs or large quantities of alcohol during or prior sexual activity?”</p><p>“N–” He begins automatically, but stops himself. His breath catches in his throat, and he pauses so long that Poppy looks up from his chart. She fixes him with a small, reassuring smile. “Not normally,” Remus says finally, staring down at his shoes. “I…this last time, I was…high.” He almost can’t bring himself to say the last word. Now, something closely resembling shame starts to seep into his bones.</p><p>“May I ask on what?” She asks, almost apologetically.</p><p>He swallows. He’d rather she not ask. He’d rather not answer. But it’s her job, and it’s why he’s here, and shame thrives in silence, so… “Crystal.” He answers, quietly.</p><p>“I see,” She responds, tone somewhere between gentle and matter-of-fact. “Are you a regular user of crystal meth?”</p><p>He shakes his head. “Not anymore.”</p><p>“Do you feel like…” Poppy begins, before stopping herself and then rephrasing. “Would you like to discuss some possible treatment options for addiction? We have many resources, right here in Duncan.”</p><p>Remus shakes his head. “Thank you. But no. It’s not a regular thing anymore. It was just a…slip-up. Just a mistake.”</p><p>Poppy nods empathetically. Then she listens to his chest and lungs, provides him some pamphlets, reminds him that STIs are easier to contract under the influence of drugs, encourages him to use condoms and lubricant with all partners, all things he already knows. And yet…</p><p>“A new HIV infection wouldn’t show up in a test until a couple months after exposure,” Poppy reminds him, “so I’d recommend you come back in a month or so to be re-tested. Everything else we can do today.”</p><p>He nods, heart sinking a bit at the prospect of not being able to entirely put that terrible night behind him yet. “Thank you.”</p><p>“You’re welcome, Remus.” She squeezes his shoulder. “We’ll call you with the results. Anything else I can do for you today?”</p><p>He shakes his head and thanks her again. When she leaves the room, he quickly wipes away a tear that’s formed at the corner of his eye, suddenly desperately wanting Lily to be in the room with him.</p><p> </p><p>-*-</p><p> </p><p>After they leave the clinic, Lily insists on taking him to their favorite café for hot chocolate. He sips it indulgently and lets the familiarity of the taste and the space and the company sooth his nerves.</p><p>“You don’t have to talk about it if you don’t want to,” Lily finally says when they’ve sat down. “But you know you can.”</p><p>He doesn’t want to talk about it. Or rather, he wants to pretend like it’s something he doesn’t need to talk about. But – he knows this very well by now – shame really does thrive in silence, so he takes a deep breath and puts his mug down, wrapping his hands around it and letting the emanating warmth comfort him.</p><p>“It’s hard to explain,” He says. He squints, as if trying to project the whole messy situation onto the wooden tabletop.</p><p>“Would you like to try?” Lily asks gently. Bless her – she’s all warmth and unconditional acceptance. Lily is the type of friend who will accompany you into the deepest and darkest spots, just to keep you company.</p><p>Remus sighs. He would, actually. He’s not talked to anyone about what happened, about what preceded it, about…about Sirius. Him and James entered into an unspoken agreement to not address any of it until they returned from Vegas, and as soon as they did, Remus promptly began ignoring his calls and texts. The more he withdrew, the more James tried to keep him from withdrawing, inundating him with well-intentioned but overwhelming pleas for Remus to talk to him. Not Lily, though. Lily knows him…not better than James, necessarily, but <em>closer </em>than James. James knows him in ways he’s ashamed to entirely admit, but Lily sees him; Lily lets him be. She sent him a single “love you, here when you’re ready” text, and answered on the first ring when Remus called her at midnight the night before, asking if she’d accompany him to the clinic today. So, yes, with Lily, he would like to try.</p><p>“It’s Sirius,” Remus says, and then reading Lily’s concerned expression, clarifies, “James’s brother, Sirius. Not ‘serious’ like the adjective. Sorry. James must have a pun field day with that one.”</p><p>Lily grins. “Oh, you have no idea. But – wait – what do you mean, ‘it’s Sirius’? Did something happen between you two on the trip?”</p><p>“Sort of. It started before then, though, we–” He cuts himself off abruptly, realizing something. “Lily, I–I don’t know if this is a thing I’m allowed to talk about.”</p><p>“What do you mean?” She asks.</p><p>The oddness of the whole situation washes over him. Sirius has been inside him, has seen him in ways even his closest friends haven’t, but really, Remus knows nothing about him. Their conversation at the club in Las Vegas was intense and loaded and intimate in ways Remus isn’t very comfortable with, but it’s really the only conversation they’ve ever had. They intently avoided interacting in more than few-word-snippets for the rest of the trip, and Remus realizes, he has no idea how much of the things Sirius shared with Remus are things he shares with other people, as well.</p><p>Lily must see his thoughts moving so furiously, because she reaches across the table to brush some hair out of Remus’s eye, letting her fingers linger a moment. “Remus,” She says gently, “You can tell me whatever. ‘Safe space’, remember?”</p><p>Back when Remus was just beginning his third year of his Master’s and Lily was entering her first year of her PhD program, the divinity school began plastering the hallways with slightly off-color rainbow stickers that read “safe space” in white letters down the middle. It was in response to claims that the school administration and faculty were discriminating against queer and trans students by allowing discussions about homophobic theology to go unchecked in certain classes. In true academic fashion, the school changed nothing whatsoever, but they certainly made sure all visiting prospective students could see the entirely symbolic gestures of a false, anti-discriminatory reality. Remus and Lily made merciless fun of the stickers, but when Lily (finally) began dating James around the same time, they adopted the slogan as a tongue-in-cheek way of indicating that something being spoken between the two of them was to remain <em>just </em>between the two of them. Lily never faltered, not once. Even when Remus told her things that involved James himself, she kept his complete confidence, often to the point of feigning very believable ignorance when James finally “divulged” the same information to her.</p><p>Neither of them have nearly as many secrets to keep anymore. But Remus knows that Lily means the sentiment as much now as she did back then.</p><p>“Okay,” Remus says, following Lily into their own metaphorical safe space, something far more sacred than what their school ever intended to create. “A while before – a couple months, maybe? – I went out to Griphook one night. And I met this guy there, and we hooked up. I didn’t know his name, or who he was, but it turns out…”</p><p>“It was Sirius?” Lily finishes for him. It’s a question, but only just a question, not an indication of outrage or surprise.</p><p>“Yeah,” Remus says, a tiny wave of relief washing over him. “That doesn’t surprise you? I’d think it would, given his…you know…<em>career</em>.”</p><p>Lily takes a slow sip of her own hot chocolate. “James and I have known for a while that he isn’t exactly…celibate. He’s never come right out and said it – that’s not really his style – but he’s not really kept it a secret, either. That’s actually why he…well, that’s not mine to share. But no, it doesn’t surprise me.”</p><p>Remus wants to ask more, but it’s an unspoken agreement in their little sacred space that things intentionally avoided are to be respected. He doesn’t know what to make of this revelation, this state of kind-of secrecy Sirius seems to exist in, but it’s not really the core of the issue anyway, so he continues.</p><p>“Well, anyway, neither of us had figured out who the other was. No idea how I didn’t put it together, to be honest, it’s not as if ‘Sirius’ is such a common name…”</p><p>“Those two only ever use each other’s nicknames,” Lily supplies with a dismissive wave of her hand. “It’s like, <em>pathological </em>with them. Drives me nuts.”</p><p>Remus allows himself to be momentarily distracted. “Yeah, where <em>do </em>those come from?”</p><p>Lily rolls her eyes. “Ask James to tell you the story some time. He’ll be more than happy to.” Lily has her my-fiancé-is-a-complete-idiot-so-it’s-a-good-thing-I-love-him voice on, so Remus makes a mental note to ask James about it at another time.</p><p>“Needless to say, it was a bit of a surprise to see each other in Las Vegas. We didn’t really – well, I didn’t know if I <em>could </em>really – we didn’t really acknowledge that we knew each other. And it was…awkward.”</p><p>“So James doesn’t know?” Lily asks.</p><p>“I didn’t tell him,” Remus responds with a shrug. “No idea if Sirius has by now.”</p><p>“I don’t know, either,” Lily says. “They have their own kind of ‘safe space’ thing going on.”</p><p>A tiny spark of jealousy shoots up Remus’s spine (whether of Sirius or James, he doesn’t know) but he ignores it. Now really isn’t the time.</p><p>“Lily,” Remus says, moving his near empty mug out of the way and leaning into his elbows, closer to her. “I don’t…we had this talk. That’s all it was – just a talk – and it…God, Lily, it’s so <em>dumb</em>.”</p><p>“What did you talk about?” Lily asks, leaning closer into him, as well. Accompanying him into the deepest and darkest spots.</p><p>“Sex,” Remus says, and Lily smirks. “No, not sex, exactly. More like, why he has it. Or…how. No, not like <em>that</em>, Lily. Like, how he justifies it as a priest. Except it got sort of weird. He kind of…turned it around on me.”</p><p>“How so?” Lily asks.</p><p>He tries to think back to the specifics of their rather brief conversation, but his memory is blurred by the alcohol he’d consumed beforehand and the…other things he'd consumed after. All he can clearly make out is the feeling. The feeling of desperation, of wanting to crawl out of his own skin, of…of being seen in a way that didn’t feel sacred, didn’t feel like it does in the “safe space” of Lily’s and his creation. </p><p>“I can’t explain it,” He finally concludes. “It just made me feel…I don’t know, Lil. It made me feel like I haven’t felt since I was fucking <em>sixteen</em>.”</p><p>“In a good way?” Lily asks. “Or in a bad way?”</p><p>Remus’s answer surprises him. “Maybe both.”</p><p><em>Well that’s odd</em>, he thinks briefly, before cataloguing the thought away for later scrutiny. Lily hums in contemplative understanding, and he takes it as an encouragement to continue.</p><p>“The whole thing was ten minutes, tops. And then he left. But I just…something snapped, Lily. I don’t know. I just…wasn’t okay, all of a sudden.”</p><p>Lily is looking at him like she can see things moving inside his brain that he can’t, but she just nods at him to continue.</p><p>“I left the club – where we were – and I wandered around a little, and then I wound up in this little dive bar off The Strip. I couldn’t tell you how I got there, honestly, but I sat down and this guy came over and started talking to me.” He’s talking faster now, absentmindedly fiddling with his fingers. “We kind of hit it off, I guess, and then he asked if I wanted to go back to his hotel room with him. He was cute, so I did, and he asked if I wanted to do some crystal with him, and I…fucking <em>did</em>, for some reason.”</p><p>“You did want to, or you did do crystal with him?” Lily asks to clarify. She sounds concerned, but not judgmental. Again, bless her.</p><p>“…Both,” Remus says quietly, looking down at his hands. </p><p>“But Remus,” She says, taking one of his fidgety hands in hers, “why?”</p><p>It’s not a <em>how could you?</em>, it’s a real, genuine, honest-to-goodness <em>why?</em> </p><p>He looks up at her, right into her bright green eyes, and shakes his head. “I don’t know,” He says honestly.</p><p>It’s been years since he’s indulged this particular vice – something Lily saw first-hand on more than one occasion – years since he’s had the urge, even. It was something he did when he was younger, when he was still in the process of becoming, something he did to quiet the raging thoughts and hatred and shame that burned inside him. He got high, and he fucked strange men, and when he did them in combination, they both hurt less. Neither felt as shameful when he did them both together. It didn’t make any sense, but he didn’t question it. He took it for the small mercy that it was. And then, when the flames of the hatred and shame began to extinguish, so did the habit. He wasn’t ever <em>addicted</em>, really, not chemically at least. It was a means to an end, an accelerant on the path to self-acceptance. So why, then, did he feel the need to do it again? Why now, when he accepts himself more completely than ever before?</p><p>“I don’t know,” He says again, more to himself this time.</p><p>Lily squeezes his hand lovingly. “It’s been – what – five years?”</p><p>“At least.”</p><p>“And I take it you hooked up with this guy?”</p><p>“Yes,” Remus replies, some of the shame and disappointment dissipating just from being brought into the light of conversation. “It was fine. But it wasn’t exactly, you know, careful.”</p><p>Lily nods. She’d probably figured as much, given the outing Remus had asked her to accompany him on.</p><p>“And this was because of Sirius?”</p><p>Yes? No? “Maybe? Something about the conversation just got to me.”</p><p>“He’s a good guy, Remus. Really, he is.” Lily says, and it seems a bit out of character, until she follows it up with, “But if he hurts you, I will end him.”</p><p>Remus can’t help but smile at his dearest friend, dearest Lily. Bless her.</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>Hey, it’s me, your cool queer aunt (I’m manifesting my own image, just let me have this one), here with a PSA! D.A.R.E. made some cool t-shirts and whatnot, but we believe in the harm reduction model here, so if you or someone you know needs more information about safely taking crystal meth and/or resources for substance use disorder, check out <a href="https://tweaker.org">this</a> website.</p>
        </blockquote></div></div>
<a name="section0011"><h2>11. Oceans (Where Feet May Fail)</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Summary for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
            <p>Sirius is in denial and Remus and James deal with the reappearance of someone from their past.</p>
          </blockquote><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>Alright now, are y’all ready to meet megachurch pastor Snape?? Great, okay. So, a caveat. I don’t mean to shit on megachurches and non-denoms. I just...well, maybe I sort of do. But more importantly, if YOU are a member of a megachurch or non-denominational church, it’s not personal, and you’re still welcome here. Yell at me in the comments or on <a href="https://bubbebruja.tumblr.com">Tumblr</a>. CW for Christian homophobia. Glossary in the endnotes. </p><p>P.S. The chapter title isn't going to be funny to anyone but me. But those who know will KNOW. </p><p>Stay well, sweet humans.</p></blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Sirius shivers as he turns over in bed, deciding between getting up to close the window or ignoring it and trying to fall asleep anyway.</p><p>He supposes it’s not really the cold that’s keeping him up.</p><p>He gives it another five minutes of futile pretending before he pads over to the bay window, pulling it closed and locking it. It’s Saturday night, and if his tired eyes are any indication, it’s well past midnight. Tomorrow’s Mass is going to drag, no doubt about it, and he’s agreed to a luncheon after. Three years in and he should know better than to agree to anything on a Sunday afternoon, but Sirius doesn’t learn. That’s the fucking problem.</p><p>He gives up pretending to sleep and flips open his laptop, closing the tabs he’d opened to help him write his homily and ignoring the little notifications that pop up at the bottom of his screen. He’s got over fifty unread messages now, far more than he’s had since he downloaded the app years ago, and he can’t even bring himself to look at them. Not even to clear them, to get rid of the little red bubble that pops up to the right of the unassuming little icon.</p><p>There will be guys who will wonder where he’s gone, guys who he really should give some sort of explanation or story or <em>apology</em>, even, <em>some </em>sort of excuse for why he’s fallen off the face of the planet. But he can’t. He’s intentionally spent very little time analyzing why, exactly, he can’t, because he doesn’t really want to know the answer. Answers are fickle little things, tidy little complicators that make his balanced world of shades of gray appear more black-and-white than he’s comfortable with. So maybe it has something to do with Las Vegas. So maybe it has something to do with Remus, with Remus’s words and his tone and his fucking <em>face</em>, maybe it has something to do with the way his chest felt a little less hallow and a little less empty and a little less…</p><p>But maybe it doesn’t. Maybe it doesn’t. Maybe it’s approaching the end of November and Advent season and the busiest time of the year, and maybe this time of year is <em>already </em>hard for him, and maybe he wishes more than anything that he could get away for just long enough to spend Christmas morning with the Potters, like he used to. Maybe it’s just the stress.</p><p>He’s just not going to think about it, okay?</p><p>Except that, he wonders what Remus is doing. If Remus is spending just as much time as he is <em>not </em>thinking about it. He wonders if Remus is okay, if Remus is taking care of himself, if Remus’s little Las Vegas slip-up is something he should worry about, something he should ask James about (again. He already tried once, and James – who had no indication that Sirius was asking about anyone who meant anything to him other than a friend-of-a-friend he met on a weekend vacation – answered with an annoying short, “oh, he’s fine”). He wonders long enough that he snaps the laptop closed with a frustrated huff, that he dips his hand into his boxers and grips himself and moans. He wonders long enough that it might be Remus’s face he pictures as he makes himself come. Maybe. </p><p>So maybe Sirius is in denial. Isn’t there something to be said for looking the other way?</p><p> </p><p>-*-</p><p> </p><p>Given that Remus grew up with the understanding that a career in waste management was aspirational, he can’t complain. “Don’t look a gift horse in the mouth,” His father would say to him (about a great many things, actually, relevant or not). And truly, all things considered, he really <em>can’t </em>complain. But he does anyway, and the thing he hates most about his job is fellowship hour.</p><p>It’s nothing to do with the congregants, truly, who are on the whole lovely people. It’s not even the watered-down powdered lemonade or the store-bought sugar cookies. It’s the chit-chat.</p><p>“Great sermon today, Reverend.”</p><p>“Please, call me Remus. And thank you – so glad you enjoyed it.”</p><p>“What a lovely message this morning. Will we see you at the potluck Friday, Reverend?”</p><p>“I wouldn’t miss it. And please, call me Remus.”</p><p>It’s more or less some version of this for a good thirty minutes as the congregants clear out of the sanctuary, passing him and the choir director and the customary greeting line they set up after each service. At this point, he more or less knows which members only want a handshake and a quick “hello” and which will want to discuss the entire canonical history of the Book of Mark or the fifteenth anniversary edition of Passion of the Christ (he remembers fuck all about Mark’s Gospel from seminary, and the crucifixion scene kind of turned him on; two things he does <em>not </em>share with those who ask). And then he lets the custodian worry about locking up, and gets the hell out of Dodge.     </p><p>Today, though, he’s got a lingerer. Remus first noticed him slipping in the back of the sanctuary just as the opening hymn played. He looked nervous and out of place; not the kind of look common to those who have never been to church before, but the opposite. The kind of look common to those who have been to church a great many times, and aren’t quite sure what they’re doing back inside of one. Those ones either bolt before the service is even over, or they linger. This one lingers, busies himself looking at the art on the walls until the receiving line dwindles and Remus lets the choir director, Mr. Flitwick, know he can go home for the day. But Remus was a lingerer once, so he takes an especially long look at his fingernails and pretends to toy with the idea of checking the guest ledger.</p><p>“Um,” A small voice comes from behind, and Remus does his absolute best to pretend like he is neither expecting it nor startled by it.</p><p>“Hello!” Remus says warmly, and it sounds a little fake on his tongue.</p><p>“Sorry to bother you…” Oh, he’s young. Eighteen or nineteen, at the oldest.</p><p>“You aren’t bothering me,” Remus replies, honestly. He smiles at the young man, who smiles back. It’s tiny and shy and reminds Remus very much of himself. “Did you enjoy the service?”</p><p>“Yes, actually,” The young man – boy, really – says back, and Remus recognizes that, too: honesty. There’s more coming, there’s always more coming, so Remus nods but remains silent. “It was, um…well, it was nice to…um…”</p><p>Remus ducks his head a bit to try to catch the shorter boy’s eyes. When their eyes do lock, Remus nods a little, almost imperceptibly. <em>You can take me there, I’ll follow you</em>.</p><p>“I guess I just haven’t heard anyone really…talk like that. In church.”</p><p>Aha.</p><p>“Do you mean the topic of the sermon?”</p><p>
  <em>You can take me there.</em>
</p><p>“Yeah.” Cautious and quiet, like admitting a secret.</p><p>“Were you able to identify with it?”</p><p>
  <em>I’ll follow you.</em>
</p><p>“Yeah.” Louder, but more shameful too. Like admitting a fear.</p><p>So very much like himself, indeed.</p><p>Remus had gone a whole two months since the dick-sucking exegesis of Romans 1 to get super, blatantly queer again in his sermon, but he’s only human, and <em>come on. </em>First Samuel is <em>asking </em>for it. So – fine – Remus has an agenda. So did Jesus, and the only people who ever complained about <em>him </em>were the vast majority of the Roman empire.</p><p>“I imagine many folks here were also able to identify with it,” Remus replies. A nudging sentence, codified language for old ladies holding hands, and not just to help each other up for communion. Language for men with babies and women with dicks and relationships decades old recognized as ordained marriages – in this space, if only in this space – long before they could ever sign their names on the certificate.</p><p>“I’ve never really…been to a church like this,” He says, some of the shame – tiny, but some all the same – gone from his voice.</p><p>“I’m very sorry to hear that,” Remus says. And <em>Christ</em>, he truly is.</p><p>“Yeah,” He responds, a little confused. “I just moved here, and I’ve been going to this other church.”</p><p>“Oh? Which one?”</p><p>“Oh, um…”</p><p>
  <em>I swear to God if it’s–</em>
</p><p>“It’s nondenominational…”</p><p>
  <em>Fuck me, if it’s–</em>
</p><p>“It’s, like, kind of new…”</p><p><em>I will burn this whole Goddamn place to the ground if it’s</em>–</p><p>“It’s called Clearwater.”</p><p>“Oh, fuck me.”</p><p>“What?”</p><p>“No, n-nothing, sorry.” He’s going to <em>kill </em>Severus. </p><p>“You’ve heard of it?”</p><p>Just outright fucking strangle him.</p><p>“I…yes. I’ve heard of it. Well, I mean – shit – haven’t we all at this point?” Remus forces a fake laugh and briefly thinks that he should probably stop cursing around congregants.</p><p>“Yeah, they’re kind of everywhere," the boy replies. "That’s how I first went, actually, a friend invited me.”</p><p>
  <em>Well ku-dos, Severus, putting that marketing minor to good use.</em>
</p><p>“And how’s it been for you?” Remus asks, afraid of the answer.</p><p>“It’s good.” The boy breaks eye contact and begins fiddling with a stray thread on the hem of his shirt. “It’s just that they don’t really…well, okay.” He looks up again, puts all his weight on one hip, the way teenagers do when they’re getting ready to really explain something to you. “So, at first I thought it was like…cool, you know? Like this place. And my friend – Pansy – she’s nice and so she invited me to this group. And at first it was all, ‘everyone is welcome here, come as you are, blah blah blah’, you know?”</p><p>Yes. Yes, he does.</p><p>“But then, recently, they’ve been saying stuff that’s like…I don’t know. It’s whatever. They’re nice.”</p><p>Christ, he looks so young. So vulnerable. Remus is going to <em>maim </em>Severus. But first: “Listen, I have to finish up a couple things, but if you don’t mind waiting around, how about I buy you a coffee? There’s a place just next door.”</p><p>“Yeah, okay.” His eyes light up, something Remus recognizes very well sparking behind them, and Remus will – well – Remus will deal with that later.</p><p>“Great! Just hang out here for a minute, okay? Just – hey, Mr. Hagrid! Come here a sec – let Mr. Hagrid show you around a bit.” He’ll build this boy some real community by the end of the day if it’s the last thing he does (…before serving his prison sentence for capital murder, that <em>fucking </em>piece of flaming garbage). “Mr. Hagrid, would you be so kind as to show this young visitor around the garden?”</p><p>“Well, I’d be happy to, Reverend,” Mr. Hagrid responds joyfully. “We’ve got the most <em>interesting </em>birds come ‘round this time of day, these real pretty ones with bright yellow feathers, and – oh! Look, there’s one now…”</p><p>Confident that the boy is in good hands, Remus absconds to his office for a moment to remove his stole and gather himself. It’s not often that he does anything remotely social following Sunday services, almost always politely turning down the lunch offers in favor of returning home and speaking to absolutely no one for the rest of the day. But this is a special circumstance. An emergency, even. He scrolls through his recent calls and clicks on James’s name.</p><p>“Jamie. He’s fucking at it again.”</p><p> </p><p>-*-</p><p> </p><p>“<em>Snivellus</em>,” James says, all venom. “Didn’t I tell you I was going to <em>beat the living shit </em>out of you if you so much as–”</p><p>“Ah!” Severus looks up, appearing happy to see them. His office is…<em>humongous</em>. “My old friends. Would you care to take a seat?”</p><p>James grows even redder, the anger climbing up his neck. “I’d care to <em>take this outside</em>.”</p><p>“Not your best, James,” Remus says under his breath.</p><p>“I’d care to <em>take your face in my fist</em>.”</p><p>“You must know that sounds very sexual, James.”</p><p>“I’d care to–”</p><p>“This isn’t very Christian,” Severus cuts in, leaning back in his chair and crossing his arms over his chest.</p><p>“Well neither am I,” James retorts. “Take that one up with Remus, here, who is <em>five times </em>the Christian you’re <em>ever</em>–”</p><p>“I think we’ve gotten a bit off track here, James,” Remus says, pinching the bridge of his nose between his fingers.</p><p>“Right,” James says, reeling himself back in a bit. “Right. <em>Listen</em>, Snivellus, now I thought we’d settled this once and for all.”</p><p>“I have no idea what you’re talking about, Potter,” Severus says innocently, crossing one ankle over the other atop his <em>truly </em>gigantic desk. Remus finds himself wishing Severus would tip backwards out of his chair.</p><p>“Cut the act,” James responds, placing his hands atop Severus’s desk and leaning over it. Remus chooses to remain on the opposite end of the room, just in case fists start flying. “You’ve been attempting conversions again, you giant hipster jackass.”</p><p>“Potter,” Severus responds conversationally, “I don’t know if you got a chance to actually study the Bible – the <em>real </em>Bible, not that Mormon crap – before you dropped out of seminary, but <em>my </em>Bible is pretty clear about evangelism. ‘<em>No one comes to the Father except through–</em>”</p><p>“That’s not the kind of conversion he’s talking about and you know it,” Remus says, stepping towards them a bit. Evangelism is an especially sore spot for James, and he can see James’s knuckles go white from gripping the desk. Despite how satisfying it would be to watch, Remus isn’t trying to bail James out of jail for aggravated assault today.</p><p>Severus takes his feet off the desk and instead leans forward against it, regarding Remus with something starting to resemble seriousness. His over-gelled man bun doesn’t move an inch. “Listen, Lupin,” He begins, voice steady and ever so slightly condescending. He always insisted on calling Remus and James by their last names, a habit that persisted precisely because they both found it so unbearably pretentious. “You and I have different ideas about what kind of lifestyles are and are not acceptable for a Christian. I don’t see why we can’t just agree to disagree–”</p><p>“Oh, for the love of God,” James scoffs, beginning to pace the office.</p><p>“–And respect each other’s <em>opinions</em>,” Severus says over James’s interruption. Remus rolls his eyes. Severus continues, a little louder now to drown out James’s continued mumbled commentary. “How can you expect people to accept <em>your </em>beliefs if you won’t accept <em>mine</em>?”</p><p>“Because,” Remus responds with as much calmness as he can possibly muster, this line of conversation being one he is not remotely unfamiliar with, “My ‘beliefs’ don’t do continued violence to a whole community of human beings, Severus, something I have explained to you countless times now.”</p><p>“I don’t see how caring about someone’s <em>eternal salvation </em>is <em>violent</em>, Lupin,” Severus responds, sharpening his consonants.</p><p>“I know you don’t,” Remus responds.</p><p>“I care about the <em>souls </em>of my congregation,” Severus continues, more than a little condescension present in his tone now. “Not just their dicks.”</p><p>“That’s it,” James says resolutely, lunging at Severus. Severus stands abruptly, a tiny hint of a smirk on his face, and Remus catches James around the middle, pulling him back.</p><p>“Jamie,” Remus says, a little out of breath, when James finally stops trying to escape his deceptively strong grip, “Why don’t you let me handle this. Go wait outside – I’ll be right there.”</p><p>James backs out of the room reluctantly, keeping rather aggressive eye contact with Severus until Remus finally closes the door behind him. He turns back towards Severus, who takes his seat once again in his giant leather desk-chair. He looks entirely too pleased with himself.</p><p>“Look, Severus,” Remus levels, knowing this conversation is reaching a point of futility. “I know you have your…beliefs about this. But can’t you at least make it clear where your church stands <em>before </em>you try to lure in queer people? You’re lulling them into a false sense of security…”</p><p>“It’s not false,” Severus responds with a shrug. “Clearwater is open to all, regardless of sexuality. We are all sinners who have fallen short of the glory of God…”</p><p>“Severus.” Remus says pleadingly.</p><p>“…No one sin is more terrible than any other…”</p><p>“Severus.” A little louder.</p><p>“…But we have to hold each other accountable to not <em>repeating </em>our sins…”</p><p>“Severus!” Remus yells, and it comes from somewhere dark and hidden, somewhere that tends to release things that creep up on him suddenly. The sheer volume of it silences Severus, who looks at Remus more directly now. “Do you not <em>care </em>that you are doing <em>harm </em>to people? Do you not <em>care </em>that people <em>die </em>because of this kind of theology? You are drawing in vulnerable people, promising unconditional love and acceptance, and then teaching them that they are inherently <em>wrong </em>because of who they want to <em>fuck</em>, Severus – does that not seem <em>absurd </em>to you?!”</p><p>Severus appears about to say something, but reconsiders. Remus’s shouts echo throughout the large office, which doesn’t quite seem to know what to do with them. He stands resolutely, flushed and panting but steady all the same. The words wriggle in the air, trying to reform themselves into some kind of structure. They must eventually succeed, landing in some coherent albeit not entirely actualized format in Severus’s ears, because his face softens a bit. He takes a long, considering breath, and Remus is about to apologize for his outburst when Severus speaks.</p><p>“I’ll pray about it,” He says, and it’s – well, Christ on a cracker – it’s almost sincere. “And I’ll take it up with the leadership team. Okay?”</p><p>Now it’s Remus who doesn’t quite know what to say, having been gearing up for total resistance. “I…yes, okay. Thank you, Severus.”</p><p>Severus just nods once, appearing entirely more human now, more like the insecure 22-year-old who used to go entirely mute around Lily and less like the smiling face that plasters billboards up and down I-95.</p><p>Remus turns to leave, but stops himself. “Hey, good luck with advent season, yeah? Get some rest.” And – Christ on a bigger cracker – it’s almost sincere.</p><p>“You too, Lupin.”</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p><strong>Nondenominational/non-denom</strong>: A church not affiliated with any particular denomination. They can express any particular belief system, but tend to lean more evangelical/fundamentalist.</p><p><strong>Homily</strong>: Basically a fancier word for "sermon", used mostly by Roman Catholics. A homily is often shorter than a Protestant sermon.</p><p><strong>Advent</strong>: In the Christian calendar, Advent is the period of time consisting of the four Sundays leading up to Christmas. It is also Clergy Hell, and the time in which all clergy disappear into our holes and die for four weeks. </p><p><strong>First Samuel (Samuel 1)</strong>: A book from the Old Testament and the winner of an informal poll in which I asked a few friends, "what's the queerest book in the Bible?" Part of First Samuel tells the story between Joshua and David, which can be pretty easily read through a queer lens. </p><p><strong>Stole</strong>: A vestment (a.k.a. piece of clothing warn by members of the clergy) worn around the neck like a scarf. </p><p><strong>"No one comes to the father except through me"</strong>: From John 14:6, this is one of the most often cited passages when justifying Christian evangelism and the belief that only Christians can truly know God. Gross, right? Don't worry, John gets redeemed later in the fic.</p>
        </blockquote></div></div>
<a name="section0012"><h2>12. Fire and Brimstone</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Summary for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
            <p>Hi, friendos! I'm going to go ahead and stop content warning about religious homophobia and queer themes - it's sprinkled all throughout the fic. You probably guessed as much when you clicked on it. Thanks for your patience with the slower upload schedule! And, again, for all your lovely comments and messages. Please keep them coming. Glossary for this chapter is in the end notes.</p><p>Smut ahead, ye mateys!</p>
          </blockquote><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>A painful conversation with a congregant leads Sirius to make a decision.</p></blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>There’s a woman crying in Sirius’s office, and that in itself is not entirely unusual. The box from which she pulls a tissue is near-empty, a signifier of the many people who have sat where she sits and wiped away their tears.</p><p>Sirius is silent while the woman composes herself. There’s nothing he could say now that would be helpful anyway, and silence – in the right circumstances – is sacred.  Delores is a middle-aged congregant, late fifties he’d guess, who Sirius has only formally met a few times in the six-or-so months he’s been at this parish. Her cheeks are rosy with circles of bright pink blush, and her red lipstick has smeared over her chin.</p><p>“I’m sorry, Father,” She says, wiping a final tear from her eye with the corner of a tissue.</p><p>“Don’t be,” Sirius says automatically, followed up by his go-to, “tears are okay here.”</p><p>Her eyes glint behind a small, wet smile. Sirius still isn’t sure why she’s asked to meet with him today - what’s behind the tears - but whatever it is he’s ready for it, bent over in his chair and leaning into his elbows. It creates intimacy, he learned in seminary, to lean into someone. Let’s them know you aren’t afraid of their secrets.</p><p>“I just needed to talk to someone,” She says, a little apologetically. He’d remind her that this is part of his job, but that reminder never actually eases anyone’s anxiety. “There’s been a lot going on.”</p><p>Sirius nods and waits for her to continue. When she doesn’t, he jumps in. “I’m glad you reached out to me, Delores.”</p><p>“I think God is punishing me,” She blurts out suddenly, the words falling into her lap.</p><p>Sirius hums in acknowledgement. <em>An affair</em>, he thinks right away. Or, <em>a new illness.</em></p><p>“Tell me why you feel that way,” Sirius says gently. <em>Don’t be too quick to absolve them</em>, Father Albus told him early on, <em>l</em><em>et them explore it first</em>.</p><p>“My children are everything to me,” She begins. This is going to be a long story, Sirius knows already. He squishes a bit into the chair, making himself more comfortable. He’s a little hungry. He should have eaten before this meeting. “My whole life, all I ever wanted was to be a mom. And I’ve worked so hard, Father, to give them everything they’ve ever needed. I tried to raise them in the church, Father, and – well, I <em>know </em>we don’t come every week, but we came often, and I sent them to Sunday school and catechism and they took their First Communion…”</p><p>She spends another five minutes at least on the My Priest is Judging Me routine (he’s not. <em>He </em>wouldn’t attend Mass as often as he does if he didn’t have to preside over it.) and then another twenty listing the extracurriculars she encouraged her children to participate in, the way she read them Bible passages every night, the way they never drank or partied or did drugs as teenagers. Sirius is already going through his mental inventory of resources for all kinds of potential Offspring Transgressions – addiction, mental illness, suicide.</p><p>Sexuality.</p><p>He hopes that isn’t where this is going. He’s seen parents break down over a 3.8 GPA and parents keep entirely composed following the death of a child, so there’s simply no way to guess.</p><p>“–he’s my youngest,” Delores continues as Sirius tunes back in more fully to the conversation. “Maybe that’s why…oh, Cornelius <em>always </em>told me I babied him too much, I should have <em>listened</em>, Father! I can be so <em>obstinate </em>sometimes! Oh, I bet that’s why…why…” Delores trails off and begins sobbing again, loud cries into the handful of tissues she pulls from the box on the end table.</p><p>“Delores,” Sirius says as gently as he possibly can. He really <em>should </em>have eaten and he doesn’t like the sound of where this is going. “May I encourage you to share a bit more about what it is your son has done?” He hesitates a bit before the last word, not liking the way he’s chosen his phrasing. Delores takes a deep, stuttering breath, trying to compose herself before she answers him.</p><p>“Father, he’s…” She stops herself, takes another deep breath, and hides her face in her hands so that Sirius has to lean in to hear her muffled words. “He’s chosen the <em>worst </em>sin, Father. The worst one.”</p><p>There’s only two things that could be: abortion or queerness. It’s never murder or rape or racism, never any <em>truly </em>awful sin, not when it’s phrased like this.</p><p>Sirius braces himself, rooting his feet to the floor.</p><p>“He’s chosen to…to…” Delores takes another long, stuttering breath, as if the words are so heavy she cannot possibly work them up through her throat. “To live a sinful life, Father, to…to take up with a <em>man</em>.” And then she’s sobbing again.</p><p>Queerness it is, then. But if she is going to go down this road, then he can too. He’s knows the road better than most. He’ll pull out every tool he can: piety, superior holiness, priestly authority. He’ll use them all. “The Bible tells us that there is no worst sin,” He begins, voice even. He hates himself a little bit. “Galatians 3:22 says, Delores, that all things are imprisoned under the power of sin. But all sin is redeemed through belief in Christ.”</p><p>It’s a trick, an oversimplification taken out of context and spoken in overconfident incoherence. But she won’t know that. She’ll hear a verse pulled from the top of his head and see a clergy collar and give him all the power she’d never give herself, the power she’d never give her son. Sirius is playing with fire, and he knows it.</p><p>“But Father,” She asks, looking up at him through wet, bloodshot eyes, “He’ll…he’ll go to <em>Hell</em>! His <em>soul</em>, Father!”</p><p>Sirius throws the fire back and forth between his hands, catching it easily. “Do you know what Revelation has to say about this?” Sirius asks.</p><p>Delores shakes her head slowly, clearly afraid of the answer.</p><p>Sirius hums a little. Stoking the fire. Making it bigger. “It says that the sexually immoral will burn in a pool of fire and sulfur.”</p><p>Delores makes a choked sound in the back of her throat, her eyes widening in horror. Sirius lets them widen. Let’s her choke for a moment on her own fear.</p><p>“Except it doesn’t,” He supplies, more casually than he should. Delores narrows her eyes, confused. “It never actually said that at all. It’s a mistranslation.” Sirius rises from his chair, walks to his desk, where he opens a drawer and bends to his knees to rifle through it. He can feel Delores’s expectation in the air, the expectation that <em>surely </em>Sirius is not done speaking. And he’s not. He’s just tossing the fire and catching it in the same hand - a juggling act not just for show. “The actual translation says that <em>adulterers </em>will burn in a pool of fire and sulfur – ah,” He finishes, having found what he was looking for. He returns to his chair, pamphlet in hand, and makes eye contact with Delores. Her cheeks have gone quite red now, from something other than makeup. “Do you know how many of those we have in our congregation?”</p><p>“I…” She begins, shaking her head a bit, “But <em>Father</em>! You…I…we <em>both </em>know that–well there’s that whole <em>section </em>on it in Genesis, or…Exodus–oh, I don’t quite remember.” It’s Leviticus. But Sirius doesn’t provide that answer. Delores raises one finger like she’s just had a profound revelation. “And Sodom and Gomorrah!”</p><p>He doesn’t worry about either of those little misconceptions right now. Something to preach on later. For now, he lets the fire grow smaller and less dangerous. “We could sit here all night and talk about scripture,” Sirius says, his voice gentler now. More…well, pastoral. “But right now, it might be more beneficial to consider what <em>else </em>we’re taught about Jesus Christ. I think we’ll find that he has a lot more to say about love than he ever did about sin.”</p><p>Delores’s face shifts back and forth rapidly, grows red with anger and pale with confusion and then finally her shoulders drop a little, her forehead smoothing out into relief. It won’t last. She’ll be back. But for now:</p><p>Sirius hands the pamphlet to her silently. <em>PFLAG</em>, It says across the front over a pastel rainbow. And then just under that: <em>Questions and answers for families of lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, gender-expansive and queer youth and adults</em>.  </p><p>She looks at the pamphlet as if it might bite her, but she takes it. Sirius sees her to her car and returns to his office, closing the door behind him and resting his head against it, shutting his eyes. And then, he makes a choice. He knows it’s a choice because he could just as easily not, but that’s the beauty of choices. That we could not, and we do anyway. That we could pick the fire or we could pick the love.</p><p>He texts Lily for Remus’s number. And then he calls it.</p><p> </p><p>-*-</p><p> </p><p>Sirius pulls up in front of the small house ten minutes earlier than the GPS had predicted. He’s not hungry anymore, or tired. He’s not even angry. He shuts off his motorcycle and walks to the front door with a kind of ease that makes him feel like he’s floating.</p><p>He knocks three times, and hears a small <em>meow </em>behind the door before he hears approaching footsteps, the deadbolt turning, and then Remus is there. His thick, curly hair is wet from the shower and he’s shirtless, as if he didn’t have time to get fully dressed before answering the door. Sirius's breath catches. He’s <em>beautiful</em>.</p><p>“Hi,” Sirius says through an exhale.</p><p>“Hi,” Remus says back, a little coldly, and Sirius figures he deserves that. But he steps aside anyway, wordlessly inviting Sirius into his home.</p><p>Sirius takes a moment to absorb his surroundings – warm yellow walls and wall hangings of all kinds, a blanket draped over the couch and a small pile of books and papers on the coffee table, a candle burning over the mantle. It feels like Remus. Warm and safe and…and meeting him. Meeting him in that strange, sacred place.</p><p>A sudden gush of affection overcomes him, and he turns toward Remus again, who is standing just a few feet from the door with his arms crossed over his chest. Sirius moves to stand in front of him, closer than they’ve been since they kissed. Not close enough.</p><p>“Can I kiss you?” Sirius asks, small and quiet and hopeful.</p><p>“I don’t want to be some manifestation of your shame,” Remus says assuredly. He doesn’t back away.</p><p>Sirius lets out a breath he hadn’t realized he’d been holding. Shame. What a waste of his time. What a waste of love. “You aren’t. You could never…that isn’t it.”</p><p>“So then why?”</p><p>He thinks about it for only a moment. <em>Why</em>. But the answer is really rather simple. “Because I want to.”</p><p>He meets Remus’s gaze, and holds it. He does not have to touch the medallion around his neck to feel her buzzing. Hail Mary, full of grace, who never got to choose what was holy, who never got to say what she wanted before the baby was inside her. Now she moves against him, a wriggle of pleasure. To want. That’s why she created, that’s why she brought God – fully human – into the world. So that he might want. So that we might want.</p><p>“I want to,” He says again, because Catholics repeat their prayers, say them over and over until they dip in between their teeth and coat the backs of their throats. He moves a single step closer to Remus.</p><p>“You want to,” Remus says back, because Protestants are good at call-and-response.</p><p>“I want to touch you,” Sirius continues, letting the holiness of it spark in his chest, just a tiny, single fleck of orange light. He reaches out a single hand, circles his fingers gently around Remus’s wrist. At the juncture of where their skin meets, something begins to burn.</p><p>“Okay.” Remus swallows hard around a lump of anxiety.</p><p>With permission, Sirius brings his other hand to Remus’s other wrist, holding both of them tighter. He lifts them between them, so that Remus’s palms face upwards. And then, “I want to kiss you.” He brings his lips to the inside of Remus’s wrists – one and then the other – placing a kiss on each that is so gentle it's barely a touch.</p><p>“You want to kiss me.”</p><p>This time, it’s more than a response. It’s an affirmation. Remus wraps Sirius’s prayer around his own tongue, warms it with his breath, and speaks it back so that Sirius can hear it from the mouth of someone who shares the prayer. The underlying statement – <em>you can, you can kiss me </em>– meets the little spark of holiness blossoming in Sirius’s chest.</p><p>But God was little once, too. And Mary, around his chest, reminds him that God was once so small – inside her, growing – that He couldn’t be seen with the naked eye. Cells divide. Things grow. Sparks become flames. It’s what makes them so powerful.</p><p>“I really want to kiss you.”</p><p>A few more sparks now, a sustaining ember even, and so he does just that. He leans in slowly and steadily, Remus not moving an inch as he waits for Sirius to show him that he truly wants. When their lips touch, there is a warmth that is so good that neither of them attempt to deepen the kiss for several moments, not until Sirius hears Her whisper <em>you want to kiss him </em>again, and then he opens his mouth more suddenly and fervently than Remus must have been expecting, because Remus pulls back a bit before adjusting to it and welcoming Sirius’s tongue into his own mouth.</p><p><em>I want to hold your face in my hands</em>, and he does. <em>I want to run my fingers through your hair</em>, and he does. <em>I want to kiss you deeper, </em>and he does. <em>I want you to want this as much as I do</em>, and he – well, Sirius can only <em>hope </em>– he does.</p><p>“Remus,” He says, still and entirely a prayer.</p><p>Sirius pushes them backwards until they hit a wall, and Remus guides them to his bedroom, all the while enthusiastically kissing Sirius back, bringing his own hands to the sides of Sirius’s face so they mirror each other. The back of Remus’s knees hit the mattress and he lets them buckle, sitting on the bed. Sirius straddles him, keeping their mouths entirely intertwined, and keeps a bit of distance between their hips until he can say, aloud…</p><p>“I want to feel your cock.”</p><p>Remus moans into his mouth. It’s not meant to be arousing – it’s not meant to <em>only </em>be arousing – and yet it is. It’s the most arousing thing Remus has ever heard.</p><p>“Yes,” Remus whispers. “I…touch me. Feel me.”</p><p>But he lets Sirius be the one to reach between them and undo Remus’s zipper. He lifts his hips so that Sirius can wriggle his trousers and underwear down his legs, but he lets Sirius be the one to pull them off his ankles.</p><p>Sirius climbs back on top of Remus, still himself fully clothed, and cups his hand gingerly around the delicate skin of Remus’s shaft. He strokes it a few times – just to feel, not to stimulate – and he lets himself recall all the things it reminds him of. Warm leather. Soft satin. The velvet at the cuffs of his chasuble.</p><p>He can feel Remus holding back, keeping his hips still so as to let Sirius take his time, which he does gladly. He continues to kiss Remus, alternating between drawn out pecks and deep, long attempts to chase Remus’s tongue with his own. And then he wants to feel other parts of Remus with his tongue, too. He trails it along the stubble of Remus’s chin, over the fold of his ear, down his carotid artery, into the hallow just above his sternum. Each inch of skin feels just a little bit different, a little bit thicker or softer or rougher, gooseflesh pebbling Remus’s skin the longer Sirius works. Remus gives him access to whatever he wants, lifting his chin to expose his neck or tilting his head so Sirius can reach the spot under his ear. He lets Sirius want, lets him chase each desire as it comes.</p><p>Sirius dips lower, climbs off of Remus’s lap just long enough to push Remus onto the bed so he’s lying flat, and then resumes his wanting. He licks the line between Remus’s pectorals, slowly over to each nipple. He rolls his tongue over one and then the other, avoiding sucking or biting regardless of how plainly he can feel Remus try to keep from arching his back further into Sirius’s mouth. He just wants to taste, for now, just feel the way the flesh becomes taught and erect under the flat of his tongue. He points it, and licks a stripe down to Remus’s belly button, which he dips into just once, just so that he can say he’s entered every part of Remus that would have him.</p><p>He doesn’t look up at Remus until he’s reached the little protrusion at the top of his hip bone. When he does, what he sees is something that he’d mistake for shock, if he didn’t know better. Remus’s eyelids are heavy but his pupils are blown, connecting with Sirius’s with such intensity it’s as if they widened just so Sirius could see as deeply inside him as possible. He keeps his hands at his sides, palms flat on the bed, but he’s shaking ever so slightly.</p><p>Sirius doesn’t warn Remus before he takes the head of his cock into his mouth, because he barely knew he was going to do it himself. <em>I want</em>, is all he had to think, and he’s there, wrapping his lips around the bulb and holding the flat of his tongue over Remus’s slit, feeling the different textures and temperatures and tastes. He doesn’t suck, doesn’t even move his tongue, but Remus arches his hips off the bed nonetheless, into Sirius throat. Sirius pulls off slightly. </p><p>“Sorry,” Remus says breathlessly, restraining himself once again. Somewhere in the back of Sirius’s mind is a memory of encouraging Remus to do just this – to arch his hips as far and deep into Sirius’s mouth as he wants – but he needs Remus’s restraint right now. He squeezes Remus’s hip in acknowledgement of his apology and doesn’t let the blunder speed him up. He holds Remus in his mouth, just holds him, just feeling, because…</p><p>Because that’s what he wants.</p><p>Slowly, slowly, he begins taking Remus into his throat, pausing every inch or so to experience the way the tip of Remus’s cock feels against his palate, or to savor the taste of Remus’s precum as it hits the buds on the side of his tongue. Remus closes his eyes, patiently allowing Sirius to move and taste and feel.</p><p>Sirius doesn’t speed up, and for a second he hears a voice in the back of his head – <em>this isn’t even a blowjob, Black, you can’t just want this – </em>but he silences it with the flames that are growing brighter and taller, the flames stoked by the prayer that he shares now with Remus.</p><p><em>I can</em>, He tells it. Tells himself and Mary and Remus. <em>I can just want</em>.</p><p>He pulls off, finally, and looks up at Remus, who for his part looks entirely undone. His eyes are open only a sliver, his knuckles white from gripping the bedspread, and he’s completely silent. Completely lost within the holiness of letting Sirius search for whatever it is he’s trying to find.</p><p>Sirius strokes the side of Remus’s face, and Remus leans into the touch.</p><p>“I want to watch you come,” He says.</p><p>Remus opens his eyes more completely. “How–?”</p><p>“However you want,” Sirius responds, unconsciously tilting his own head to one side to mimic Remus’s. “Just let me watch you, please, Remus? I want to watch you.”</p><p>As if afraid Remus might say no, Sirius breaks eye contact, staring downward in something that looks an awful lot like shame. So Remus grabs his hand and squeezes it. “Yes,” he says. “Yes, of course you can watch me come, Sirius.” </p><p><em>Holy</em>, Sirius thinks.</p><p>Remus places a gentle hand on Sirius’s hip, encouraging him off of his lap so he can readjust himself on the bed, propping himself up on a few pillows. When he’s comfortable, he motions for Sirius.</p><p>“Come here,” He says. And Sirius does, but he moves a little hesitantly, so Remus grabs his hand and eases him down onto Remus’s shoulder. It takes him a moment, but Remus can feel the second Sirius relaxes into it, readjusting his chin so that he has a better view of Remus’s cock. “Watch me.”</p><p><em>Holy</em>.</p><p>Remus gathers some lube from the bottle beside his bed and grips himself around the base of his cock. The contrast of the brown skin of his hand against the purple of his cock is beautiful, complimentary colors and abstract shapes that begin to blur as Remus starts to move his hand in firm, slow strokes.</p><p>Sirius plants a kiss on the bare skin of Remus’s shoulder – because he wants to – and his head begins to swim as he feels Remus’s breathing become shallower. He finds himself chasing Remus’s own orgasm along with him, finds himself edging on the precipice of pleasure just as Remus slows his strokes, drawing it out, letting Sirius watch.</p><p>“Is this what you want?” Remus says into Sirius’s hair.</p><p>And <em>oh</em>, yes. Yes, this is what Sirius wants. This is all Sirius wants. “<em>Oh my God</em>,” Is what he ends up saying, a prayer from a different time and place.</p><p>He doesn’t so much as register the desire before he watches his own hand move to cover Remus’s. It circles assuredly around Remus’s moving palm and it doesn’t add any pressure, doesn’t change the rhythm at all, just moves as he does. Remus kisses Sirius’s forehead, his hair, grips himself a little tighter and Sirius can <em>feel </em>it, can feel the pressure of Remus’s fist as it tightens on his swollen cock, the way his fingers twitch as Sirius’s strokes them with his own.</p><p>“<em>Sirius</em>,” Remus says on a sob. He bucks his hips into his hand and chases the release that Sirius can feel to, chases the thing that Remus wants. “Sirius, watch me come.”</p><p><em>Holy</em>, Sirius thinks. <em>Holy holy holy</em>.</p><p>And he does. He does exactly what he wants to do, and he watches with wide, enchanted eyes as Remus bucks into his hand one last time, as three small spurts of milky white cum shoot out from his tip, down over their entwined hands, where it comes to rest in between the crevices of their fingers.</p><p>“Oh,” Remus says in a final moan, riding out the last spasms of his orgasm.</p><p>Sirius keeps his eyes glued to the place where their hands remain grasping Remus’s softening cock. He tightens his own hand, feels Remus’s cum between them and watches as Remus extracts himself from the jumble, reaching for the side table to grab a tissue, which he runs over and between Sirius’s fingers with intricate care. Sirius watches, watches as Remus cleans him and then himself and then discards the tissue somewhere to the side of the bed. He shifts his gaze up to Remus’s face, and watches as Remus looks back at him, watches Remus’s brown irises get a little lost flitting over Sirius’s expression.</p><p>“Are you alright?” Remus asks, tucking a few stray hairs behind Sirius’s ear.</p><p><em>Am I alright</em>, Sirius repeats to himself. He doesn’t quite know the answer. He knows…he knows that he wanted. That he asked and he got. That he…that it was holy.</p><p>“Thank you,” Sirius says. It’s by no means a response.</p><p>“May I…?” Remus asks, motioning for Sirius’s crotch. And it’s then that he realizes, he’s not hard. Not even a little. But he <em>was</em>, before, before he wanted to watch Remus come and before he watched Remus come and before he felt himself climbing and falling alongside Remus, his hand wrapped around Remus’s hand.</p><p>He shakes his head, and a small smile crawls over his mouth. He’s…well, he has no idea <em>what </em>he is, or what just happened, or what to do about it, but he knows…</p><p>“I want to sleep next to you.”</p><p>And Remus – who has been praying with him since the moment Sirius showed up on his doorstep, who heard his prayer and responded with a resounding <em>amen </em>– nods back at him. “Okay,” He says.</p><p>Five minutes later they return to Remus’s bed, teeth brushed and Sirius snugly wrapped in one of Remus’s t-shirts, and Sirius rests his head back on Remus’s shoulder. Where it fits. Where it – maybe – belongs, and Remus nuzzles the top of Sirius’s head, plants a sweet kiss to the spot above his eye.</p><p><em>I want</em>, Sirius thinks as he drifts to sleep. <em>I want</em>.</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p><strong>Catechism and First Communion</strong>: Both parts of the process children and youth go through to become confirmed as Catholic. Catechism is the process of studying the core tenants of the faith, and First Communion is exactly what it sounds like - the first time someone takes Communion (bread and wine, meant to either represent or literally be Christ's body and blood, depending on faith) for the first time. </p><p><strong>Galatians 3:22</strong>: Directly quoted says, "But the scripture has imprisoned all things under the power of sin, so that what was promised through faith in Jesus Christ might be given to those who believe" (NRSV). What does that mean? Who the hell knows. Sirius's interpretation is...fine.</p><p><strong>Revelation</strong>: The last book in the Bible, written by someone who was on a really bad acid trip. It's...a lot. But it's the book most commonly associated with a) predicting the end of the world and b) describing Hell. Yes, it says that adulterers will burn in a pool of fire and sulfur (along with basically everyone else), but it also says a lot of other things. It's a metaphor, we collectively decided, okay? It's all a metaphor. </p><p><strong>Sodom and Gomorrah</strong>: A story from the Old Testament often used to justify the condemnation of homosexuality. That's not what the story's actually about. The story is about the dangers of bad hospitality. But that's not as fun. Also where the word "sodomy" comes from!</p><p><strong>Mary</strong>: The mother of Christ (and thus - in Christian belief - of God). She's a badass. She's the best. She's amazing. There's a lot more to say on her - if you're entirely unfamiliar, that's all you need to know for the context of the chapter.</p><p><strong>Chasuble</strong>: A garment that Priests and other clergy wear on the outside of their clothes. It's a bit like a robe, but with much bigger sleeves. You know that bit in Fleabag where she goes with the Hot Priest to try on giant, velvety, colorful things? Those are chasubles.</p><p>Oh, and that PFLAG pamphlet is real! It's <a href="https://pflag.org/sites/default/files/OUR%20CHILDREN_PFLAGNational_FINAL.pdf">here</a>.</p>
        </blockquote></div></div>
<a name="section0013"><h2>13. The Potters</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Summary for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
            <p>The day Sirius met the Potters was the best day of his life.</p>
          </blockquote><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>Well we have to have <em>backstory</em>, don't we? We'll be back to our Regularly Scheduled Pairing next week.</p><p>Stay well, dears! Glossary in the end notes.</p></blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>The day Sirius Black met the Potters was the best day of his life.</p><p>This may have been partially due to the fact that it came in such close proximity to the worst day of his life, but mostly it was due to the way that they emanated so much warmth it began to thaw fifteen years of frozen, numbing, stinging love.</p><p>As he’d approached the Potter house in the standard CPS black sedan, he was a hair’s width away from opening the passenger side door and risking the injury of jumping out of a moving vehicle. But as the social worker parked the car in the driveway and double-checked the address number, something from the house began to settle Sirius’s nervous energy. It wasn’t just that the house was huge – Sirius was familiar with huge houses, having grown up in a 20-million-dollar mansion in the Hollywood Hills – it was that it was <em>warm</em>. It was situated between identical houses on either side, xeriscaped tan stucco monstrosities that went on for miles and miles. McMansions, he might have called them, if he wasn’t so fucking relieved to be there. But the Potter’s house was different. Over-decorated in Halloween inspired lights and carefully carved pumpkins (though it was – and only barely – September), it gave the impression of being lived in by people who were deliberately not-fussy.</p><p>The Blacks were fussy. The Blacks were as fussy as people come, so focused on appearance and reputation that what happened behind closed doors eventually stopped being much of anything at all. If it couldn’t be put on display at the annual St. Paul’s Boys School fundraiser auction, it wasn’t worth discussing. Not – unless – it was A Bad Thing. And, to be fair, the list of Bad Things was long and inflexible, but Sirius was particularly prone to doing The Bad Things. Not intentionally, necessarily, it’s just that the list was. Well.</p><p>The Blacks were Catholic.</p><p>And Sirius was not. He was <em>not</em>. He silently cast off every blessing thrown at him, sat in the Confessional only long enough to convince his parents he’d actually confessed something, removed every <em>veladora </em>from his room except the blasphemous ones – the ones he bought at the gag shop in the mall that bore the faces of Marilyn Manson and Betty Boop. He cut his Rosaries and dipped his middle finger into the stoup and muttered <em>fuck you </em>under his breath every time he passed the priceless Spanish <em>Santo </em>in the dining room.</p><p>And Mary. Fucking <em>Mary. </em>He couldn’t escape her. Every corner he turned – every room he entered – there she was. Prayerful hands in front of her breasts and the Angel Gabriel looking adoringly up at her and what did <em>she </em>ever do to deserve the veneration? Give birth? Sirius’s mom had given birth twice, and she was certainly no <em>santa</em>.</p><p>So that was what he hoped for, as he stepped out of the passenger’s side door of the black sedan. <em>No Catholics</em>. No <em>Mary </em>or <em>veladoras </em>or fake fucking <em>santos</em>. No list of Bad Things.</p><p>The woman who answered the door smiled so widely at Sirius that he wondered if they had the wrong house. She had long blonde hair that fell in neat layers around her face and a toddler on her hip, chewing fixedly on a carrot stick. Mrs. Potter and the toddler stared at him with the same kind of eager animation, and Sirius was suddenly very aware of how badly he needed a haircut. The button-down he’d pulled from his closet in a hurry was wrinkled from the drive, and Mrs. Potter looked the type to iron bedsheets. Still, she stepped aside and welcomed him in with the same kind of warmth that emanated from the outside of the house, inviting him and the case worker to take a seat on one of the large, leather sofas in the room just off the entry.</p><p>“Just a moment, let me track down Flea,” Mrs. Potter said, and disappeared up the carpeted staircase.</p><p>Sirius tapped his feet against the area rug nervously and looked around the room for any indication of who these people might be. No icons or crucifixes in sight, but he did spot – on the far end of the room, just above the large television – a scripture from a book in the Bible he wasn’t familiar with, scrolled in neat cursive over the pastel blue paint. Otherwise, what he could see of the house appeared entirely normal. Children’s toys and books were shelved neatly inside various containers, and DVD titles of various Disney and animated films filled up almost an entire shelf of their own. He wondered just how many children the Potters had.  </p><p>His question was answered when the sound of a screen door opening somewhere in the house was followed quickly by a parade of bathing suit clad children in various states of dampness, some with towels wrapped around them and some dripping water right onto the hardwood. <em>That’ll stain</em>, Sirius thought, and then, oddly, <em>maybe the Potters don’t care</em>. The parade ran through the house squealing various delights, coming to a stop only when they caught sight of him. Sirius counted at least ten – ten curious faces staring at him from the wide archway separating the living room from the kitchen, each belonging to a child of various height and age and color, each looking at him like it was not at all unusual for them to find a perfect stranger sitting in their living room.</p><p>“Um – hi,” Sirius said to the many curious faces.</p><p>Some greeted him back, some whispered to each other. A couple ran up to the case worker sitting next to Sirius and gave her a familiar hug. Sirius felt like crawling out of his skin, and was just about to excuse himself to the bathroom when a playful roar came from the kitchen.</p><p>“We have not yet defeated the evil squid monster!” The voice said. It sounded like it belonged to someone older than these children, someone closer in age to Sirius, perhaps. And then, visible through the doorway, a tall boy of maybe sixteen appeared, wearing only a pair of swim trunks and black, wire-rimmed glasses. He was hunched over, crooking his arms like a dinosaur. One child was clinging to his neck and another to his leg, so that each step dragged him across the floor. “Where have my <em>minions </em>gone,” He continued, until he too reached the archway.</p><p>“Oh!” He said easily, straightening up and gently removing the giggling girl from his back. “You must be Sirius!” He walked over to Sirius as if it was the easiest thing in the world, training him with a smile as warm as the one Mrs. Potter had given him. “I’m James.”</p><p>Sirius stood too, taking James’s slightly damp hand and shaking it. “Sirius.”</p><p>“Glad to have you here,” James said, and sounded entirely sincere. He leaned closer to Sirius and lowered his voice a little. “It’s not always like this, I promise.”</p><p>Sirius nodded, but got the impression it was probably “like this” more often than not. He was surprised to find that he was okay with that, that he was <em>comforted </em>by it, even. The Black house was so quiet you could hear a pin drop, and the giggles and whispers of children sounded distinctly of <em>not-</em>home. Which, incidentally, is <em>exactly </em>where Sirius wanted to be.</p><p>Mrs. Potter and the man Sirius assumed was her husband came back down the stairs sans toddler, and sent James and the children back outside. She disappeared to the kitchen and returned shortly with a tray of lemonade and cookies, which she placed down on the coffee table as if she hadn’t just brought it out for decoration. She handed a glass to Sirius and the case worker and sat down next to her husband on the opposite couch, placing a hand on his knee. The lemonade was cold in Sirius’s hand and he could hear shouts and splashes from the backyard. The whole thing disoriented him, made him feel a little dizzy.</p><p>“I see you’ve already met the others,” Mrs. Potter said with a smile. “We don’t always have so many.”</p><p>“So many…?” Sirius said.</p><p>“Foster children,” Mr. Potter replied. His voice was more melodic than Sirius was expecting. In contrast to his dark hair and solid build, it was a little disarming. “Fi means we don’t usually have so many foster children.”</p><p>“Oh!” Sirius replied. He felt…better knowing he wasn’t the only one. Or was it worse? “Do you have any…I mean, are any of them…”</p><p>“James is ours,” Mrs. Potter responded. “The others come and go – though, of course, Sirius, we love them like our own.”</p><p>The way she said that last bit startled Sirius enough that he flinched slightly, involuntarily. “Love” wasn’t a word spoken so often in the Black household, certainly never so casually.</p><p>“It can take some getting used to,” Mr. Potter said. And then he raised his hand to the side of his mouth, as if telling Sirius a secret. “The secret is ear plugs. I have a stash in our bedroom.”</p><p>Sirius couldn’t help but smile at the Potters. They weren’t what he was expecting. He was expecting – well – nothing, actually. He hadn’t had time to build any expectations. But as far as shitty situations go – the Potters? He would take them.</p><p>“We don’t have many rules here,” Mrs. Potter said, smiling at Sirius. “The big one: no talking to Flea in the morning until he’s had his coffee.”</p><p>Sirius nodded quickly and vigorously, and his heart sped up all on its own, but the Potters were nudging each other and…and laughing. And the case worker was too. They were <em>joking</em>. They were – they weren’t – that was…</p><p>“In all seriousness,” Mr. Potter chimed in on a final chuckle, though his tone sounded entirely light still, “Just respect the house. Respect each other. We haven’t had another teenager in the house in a while, but we don’t feel the need to put many restrictions on James. You’re – what – fifteen? Practically a man!”</p><p>And Sirius squirmed a little in his seat, because these weren’t the kind of rules he was familiar with. Because he figured “respect” might mean something different in this house. Because if he was a man – well, being a man is what got him into this mess, wasn’t it?</p><p>“Yes sir,” Sirius said soberly, the response coming from somewhere deep and automatic.</p><p>“<em>Sir</em>,” Mr. Potter said liltingly. “No need for that here. Call us Flea and Fi, or Mr. and Mrs. Potter, whatever you’re comfortable with.”</p><p>Sirius realized he was gaping at them, so he closed his mouth. The dizziness mixed with the smell of chlorine and the taste of the tart lemonade and the frenzy of the last few days. He felt exhausted. He felt exhilarated. He felt like he should run over and hug them, or run out the front door and keep running. </p><p>“Welcome to the family, Sirius!” Mr. Potter finished. And he – maybe – meant it.</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p><strong>Veladora</strong>: Catholic prayer candles, usually tall and thin and bearing the imagery of Jesus, Mary, or a saint. You've seen them, I promise. </p><p><strong>Rosary</strong>: A string of beads (can also be knots) used in Catholicism for praying a specific set of prayers in a specific order.</p><p><strong>Stoup</strong>: A basin containing holy water, usually found in the entrance to a Roman Catholic Church (and also the churches of a few other denominations). </p><p><strong>Santo</strong>: In this case, refers to a specific kind of religious art originating from Spain. Similar art can be found in Mexico, The Philippines, and other parts of Latin America, but let's be honest, the priceless ones are still from Spain. Because: colonialism.</p><p><strong>Santa/Santo</strong>: I know, confusing to use the same word twice in different contexts. In this context, just the Spanish word for "saint" (a male saint if it ends in "o" and a female saint if it ends in "a". No consensus on the proper language on non-binary saints, but let's be honest - they do exist.)</p>
        </blockquote></div></div>
<a name="section0014"><h2>14. The Morning After</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Summary for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
            <p>Breakfast is had. Nicknames are explained. And James is still very confused.</p>
          </blockquote><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>Happy Sunday, friendos! No content warnings here, just some semi-fluffy morning-after content. A few things are in the glossary in the end notes, but not many this time around. Thanks again for your continued patience with the slower upload schedule, and for your lovely comments.</p><p>Stay well!</p></blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Remus thought he’d made up his mind. <em>Nothing</em>, he said to himself. <em>It’s nothing. It won’t go anywhere. It can’t go anywhere</em>. And ultimately – <em>move on</em>.</p><p>Then Sirius up and called him.</p><p>Remus had reached the part in the “moving on” process where his intellect had processed this reality and his fantasies had not. So it wasn’t as if he hadn’t <em>thought </em>about what it might be like. He’d be sitting on the couch one night, looking effortlessly cute and doing something important like writing a sermon, or talking to a troubled youth. And then there’d be a knock at the door, and he’d take his time opening it – because it’s probably just a canvasser, what on earth would have made him think otherwise? – and once he did, he’d be absolutely shocked to find Sirius standing there, hair wet from the rain (it’s raining in Remus’s fantasy, apparently) and there to tell him, “I can’t stop thinking about you. I want you.” And Remus would say, “woah there, hold on,” (as if he’d not had this imaginary conversation fifty times before), “what led to this change of heart?” or “are you okay, Sirius? Come in, let me make you some tea.” or <em>ooh</em>, or “I don’t want to be some manifestation of your shame, Sirius.” Yeah, that’s good. That’s very good.</p><p>And then Sirius up and <em>called </em>him. And he was sitting on his couch, sweaty from yoga and distinctly <em>not </em>cute, scrolling mindlessly through nothing in particular and actively avoiding working on anything of any kind of importance whatsoever. Oops.</p><p>“Can I come over?” Sirius asked him.</p><p>Remus looked down at his tank top, clinging to his chest through a layer of sweat. Figures. But since when do real-life fantasies look the way they do in your head? And besides, Sirius wasn’t at his door yet (because, Remus realized, how would Sirius have known where he lived in the first place?). “Okay,” He replied, and gave Sirius his address. Then he sat on his couch five minutes more thinking through another ten imaginary fantasy conversations, and then realized he should actually take a shower.</p><p>The night wasn’t what he’d expected or imagined or fantasized about. But Sirius felt so warm and solid and real, and he kissed Remus with lips that were softer than they were even in his fantasies, and Remus didn’t even bother to tell Sirius that he actually wasn’t much one for sleepovers. Because he <em>wanted </em>Sirius to sleepover, for some reason. He wanted to fall asleep next to him and wake up next to him and fuck all of this, really. Because what <em>was </em>this? What were they? He fell asleep with Sirius’s head cradled against his shoulder and tried not to overthink it. So he dreamt about it instead.</p><p>He wakes up to an insistent knock on his front door. He reaches for his phone to check the time and finds he has several missed texts and calls from James.</p><p>“Fuck,” He says. To his side, curled up into a ball with his head still very close to Remus’s shoulder, Sirius stirs. He’s a heavy sleeper, apparently, to not wake up to the knocking. “Sirius,” Remus says, nudging Sirius’s shoulder gently. “Sirius, wake up.”</p><p>“Hmm?” Sirius replies sleepily, opening a single eye and looking up at Remus. He looks adorable. Fucking adorable.</p><p>“James and Lily are here,” Remus says, giving Sirius a little smile. “We have breakfast plans. I forgot.”</p><p>“Mmkay,” Sirius replies, sounding half-conscious at best. “Have fun.”</p><p>“No, Sirius,” Remus says. He’s laughing, and he shouldn’t be. He’s not nearly ready to explain…<em>this </em>to James yet. “They’re <em>here</em>. They come over once a week. To my house. Where we are.”</p><p>This seems to wake Sirius up more. “Oh, fuck,” He replies, sitting up on his elbows. “They’re here now?”</p><p>Remus nods. From the living room, he hears the distinctive sounds of a key turning in the squeaky lock. James and Lily’s key. James and Lily are coming into his house, and here’s James’s brother, James’s <em>priest </em>brother, naked in his bed…</p><p>“Fuck,” Remus says again, getting hastily out of bed and rummaging for whatever clothes he can find. James calls his name from the living room. “Coming, James!”</p><p>“What do you want me to…?”</p><p>“Stay here,” Remus says. “I’ll go…I’ll be back. Just stay here.”</p><p>He finds James and Lily peering into the kitchen. “Hey!” Remus says as casually as he can, even though he knows he sounds out of breath. “Sorry – slept through my alarm.”</p><p>James looks at him oddly, as if he’s aware something is awry but can’t possibly figure out what it is. Beside him, Lily just smirks.</p><p>“Nice motorcycle,” She says knowingly. “Yours?”</p><p>Fuck.</p><p>“Okay, Lily, I…” Remus looks around the room as if a convincing explanation might be sitting on the coffee table. Finding none, he goes for the next best thing. “I can explain.”</p><p>“Explain what?” James asks.</p><p>“Yes, Remus,” Lily says. She’s flat out grinning now. “Explain what?”</p><p>“Why…well, I…” His head feels a little fuzzy. The memories from last night hit him all at once and go right to his cock, which begins filling <em>very </em>inconveniently through what he now realizes are very thin sweatpants. “Fine,” He concedes. “He’s here.”</p><p>“Who’s here?” James asks incredulously. He looks back and forth between Lily and Remus.</p><p>“I <em>knew </em>it!” Lily exclaims. She claps her hands together a few times, and Remus can’t help but feel a little warm at her excitement. He’s feeling it too. He’s…well, he doesn’t know what he is. “Where is he?”</p><p>“Where is <em>who</em>?” James asks again, clearly not thrilled at being ignored. “What are you talking about?”</p><p>Remus brings his thumb to his mouth and begins chewing on the nail. “Bedroom,” He mumbles.</p><p>Lily looks as if she’s about to take off down the hall, but she doesn’t. Her face melts into something a bit less gleeful. “Remus,” She says, “Do you want us to leave?”</p><p>“Why would we leave?” James asks loudly. Still they ignore him.</p><p>He <em>doesn’t </em>want them to leave. He wants Sirius to come out of Remus’s room, hair messy from having slept on the scratchy pillowcase Remus never uses for himself. He wants to put his arm around Sirius’s waist like it’s no big deal, like it’s something he does all the time. He wants the four of them to make breakfast together, bumping into each other in his small kitchen and not minding. He wants…he wants Sirius to not be a priest. He isn’t going to say any of that.</p><p>“No,” He says finally. “Stay. Just, give me a minute?”</p><p>Lily nods. James has taken to unloading the breakfast groceries into the fridge, apparently accepting he isn't going to get any answers.</p><p>Remus takes a moment to splash cold water on his face and brush his teeth. He reenters his own room as if it’s not his, knocking softly before opening the door. He finds Sirius fully dressed, sitting atop his perfectly made bed. Remus closes the door behind him and sits down next to Sirius.</p><p>“What do you want to do?” He asks. He means about breakfast, but he also doesn’t just mean about breakfast.</p><p>“They know?” Sirius asks. He sounds…self-conscious, but not afraid.</p><p>“Lily does,” Remus replies. “She saw your motorcycle out front.”</p><p>“Oh,” Sirius says. “I forgot about that.”</p><p><em>Seems you forgot about a lot of things last night</em>, Remus thinks. But he isn’t going to say that either.</p><p>“She asked if they should leave,” Remus says, starting to feel rather self-conscious himself. “Should they?”</p><p>Sirius stares at the floor, running his fingers through his tangled hair. Remus couldn’t even guess at what he’s thinking about, but it appears to be a lot.</p><p>“No,” Sirius says finally. He looks back at Remus, and something in the look, in his tone, feels decided. Feels significant in some way. Feels warm and full and safe. “No, let’s just go out there. James’ll be…he’ll be surprised. But I don’t think he’ll be…” Sirius trails off, a little glint of fear growing behind his eyes.</p><p>“He won’t,” Remus says reassuringly, placing a hand on Sirius’s shoulder. “He won’t be.”</p><p>They don’t hold hands when they leave Remus’s room, but they do <em>leave Remus’s room</em>, so even James isn’t dense enough to think they were just having an early morning chat. Remus goes first, and heads straight for the kitchen as if nothing is remotely out of the ordinary. He turns just in time to see Sirius emerge fully into the living room, in full view of James, who looks up from slicing oranges with a rather theatrical double take.</p><p>“<em>Sirius</em>?” He says. He sounds the kind of surprised like when you run into someone at the grocery store, not the kind of surprised like when you’ve just found out your brother is sleeping with your best friend. “What are you doing here?”</p><p>Ah. Because he <em>hasn’t</em> yet figured out that his brother is sleeping with his best friend.</p><p>“Um,” Sirius starts, apparently not expecting to have to explain, either. “I…I slept here, James.”</p><p>“You did?” James asks. “Why?”</p><p>Remus hides a smirk behind the refrigerator door. <em>Oh James</em>, Remus thinks. <em>Oh sweet, sheltered James</em>.</p><p>There is a silence filled first with oblivion, and then with an increasingly palpable tension as something apparently dawns on James. Remus fills the coffee pot, intentionally not watching whatever unspoken things might be transpiring between them.</p><p>“I’m confused,” James says. Confusedly.</p><p><em>Same here</em>, Remus wants to say.</p><p>“James,” Lily interjects, “Would you help me get something from the car?”</p><p>James doesn’t seem to understand what that means, either. Luckily, he goes with her anyway.</p><p> </p><p>-*-</p><p> </p><p>Half an hour later, they are sitting around Remus’s kitchen table tucking into scrambled eggs and banana pancakes and orange slices. Whatever Lily said to James outside seemed to placate him at least enough to act (mostly) normally, and they eat in comfortable idle chatter. There’s a giant elephant sitting in one of the kitchen chairs, but Remus has had odder things in his house.</p><p>“The problem we’re having now,” Lily is explaining, “is that James’s parents are insisting that they’ve found the perfect venue. A <em>plantation</em>. A plantation! Can you imagine?”</p><p>“They’re not from the south,” James replies. It’s humorous rather than defensive, but it's also a little bit defensive.</p><p>“So that somehow makes them unaware of the entire history of our country?” Lily asks. It’s mostly affectionate. Mostly.</p><p>“I’ll talk to them,” James says. He wipes his mouth and shoots a quick glance Remus’s direction that he suspects is mostly unconscious. James didn’t grow up around many Black people.</p><p>“Pass the eggs, Moony?” James says, probably to change the subject.</p><p>“Where does that come from?” Sirius asks. He’s been mostly quiet throughout the meal. Not sulky, but observant. “’Moony’?”</p><p>“Oh, that’s a great story,” James says, scooping some eggs onto his plate. Remus blushes. “So it’s our first year at seminary, and we’re in this Christian Theology class – it’s one of the required courses for all first years, so there’s, like, a hundred of us stuffed in this lecture hall twice a week. Well one day, the professor–”</p><p>“Fascist homophobe,” Remus says under his breath.</p><p>“–The professor – a fascist homophobe, as Moony has so eloquently put – starts lecturing about sexuality and gender. And it’s going well enough, he’s taking the whole ‘Christian moderate’ stance of just ‘offering an objective survey of the different opinions’, you know?” Sirius nods in intimate familiarity. “Well, who knows why, but he suddenly decides to grace us with his <em>own </em>opinion on the matter.” Remus smiles. It was painful at the time, but it’s strictly funny now. “So he starts going off. He’s using every scripture he can think of, doing the whole ‘Adam and Eve not Adam and Steve’ thing – no, seriously! – and Remus is just getting angrier and angrier.”</p><p>“I don’t know how you could have known that,” Remus interjects. “We weren’t friends yet.”</p><p>“You were practically steaming from the ears!” James replies. “And I used to sit just a few seats away from him. Anyway. Finally, Remus raises his hand. And I think the professor knew he was going to have something critical to say, so he just ignores it. So Remus – he <em>stands up</em>, keeping his hand raised, and now there’s <em>no way </em>the professor can pretend he doesn’t see. And everyone else is now staring too.”</p><p>“Didn’t make any difference,” Remus supplies.</p><p>“None whatsoever,” James continues. “And a few others start raising their hands too, trying to get the professor to call on Remus, but he just keeps going. Ranting about the ‘slippery slope’ and ‘Godly marriage’, and so finally,” James takes a second to snigger, and Remus does the same, though he goes bright red. Lily is smiling too. “So <em>finally</em>, Remus just turns around and pulls down his pants. Moons the <em>entire </em>lecture hall.”</p><p>“<em>What</em>?” Sirius exclaims. He’s grinning wildly now too, and the sight of it makes Remus flush even harder.</p><p>James nods. “Right at the professor. His face was <em>priceless</em>.” James reaches for the coffee pot, as if done with the story.</p><p>“You always forget to add,” Remus says, “That he <em>kept going</em>. The professor, he was so flustered but he just kept going.”</p><p>“Remus stands there, bent over, baring his naked ass,” James says through a mouthful of food.</p><p>“And then guess who stands up and does the same thing?” This part of the story always makes Remus feel undying affection for James. Sirius gestures at James, as if the answer to the question is obvious. “Yep. James hadn’t said more than ten words to me at that point, but he stood up and yanked down his two-hundred-dollar jeans.”</p><p>“I just wanted an excuse to show my fabulous butt to the class,” James says. Remus knows that isn’t it, though. He knows, and he loves James for it.</p><p>“We got suspended from classes for two weeks and had to meet with the Dean,” Remus says. “But the professor never brought the topic up again.”</p><p>Sirius is laughing, and Remus isn’t sure he’s ever heard Sirius laugh before. Surely he has – in Vegas if nowhere else – but he doesn’t recall it being so hearty, so unfettered.</p><p>“He was ‘moony’ from then on,” Lily finishes, having heard the story many times. She acts put-upon by hearing it again, but Remus knows for a fact it’s the very story that convinced Lily to give James a chance.</p><p>“That’s amazing,” Sirius says, right to Remus. Their eyes meet, Sirius’s filled with something like awe.</p><p>“Thanks,” Remus replies shyly. He holds Sirius’s gaze, and they smile at each other. Sirius’s smile…Sirius’s awe…it’s too much. It’s not enough. Remus pulls his gaze away and looks for a quick way to change the subject.<br/><br/>“And you?” He asks, his voice cracking a little. “Where do ‘pads’ and ‘prongs’ come from?” Remus knows the answer to the second one already, but he needs some time to compose himself.</p><p>Remus notices Sirius’s smile fade, just the tiniest bit; still joyful, but a bit more constrained.</p><p>“High school,” Sirius replies, fiddling with his napkin. “It was…given to me. I didn’t necessarily want it.”</p><p>James kicks Sirius under the table, a playful gesture that also seems to carry an undertone of understanding. It feels rather loaded.</p><p>“I was on the football team,” James continues, still looking at Sirius. Remus knew as much, but he lets James continue. “I played linebacker, and I had this one move…” Remus and Lily share a good-natured look of annoyance, both having heard about James’s “glory days” one too many times. “Well anyway, I had this move I was famous for, and the coach would joke that I was like a bull, ramming something.”</p><p>“Bulls have horns, not prongs,” Lily cuts in.</p><p>“I know, dear,” James says. “But we’d all had too many concussions at that point to care about the difference. ‘Prongs’ sounds better than ‘horns’, I guess.”</p><p>“And yours?” Remus asks, looking at Sirius. He’s completely flustered, thinking about high school-aged Sirius, and there’s no reasonable explanation for it.</p><p>“Also courtesy of the football team,” Sirius replies, his voice a little sharp.</p><p>“We had this awful habit of bullying new kids by giving them nicknames we thought were hilarious," James explains. "Most of them had to do with genitals. By the time Sirius came along, all the good stand-bys were taken, so they got creative. I guess ‘tampon’ was too long, so…”</p><p>“Pads,” Remus says wryly, always marveling at the depths of immature masculinity. “Like the period product.”</p><p>“It’s funny, because women are so inferior,” Lily adds sarcastically.</p><p>“We were teenagers,” James says by way of further explanation. “We were idiots. And I didn’t participate, mind you. It was horrible. I should have stopped it–”</p><p>“You tried,” Sirius says, defending him. Lily shoots Sirius a warm smile.</p><p>“–I should have tried harder. Anyway, the team warmed up to him quickly, but the nickname stuck.”</p><p>“They only warmed up to be because James made them,” Sirius says. He has his arms crossed casually over his chest now, leaning back in his chair, exposing the tattoos on his collarbones.</p><p>“Do you mind it?” Remus asks, for something to say that doesn’t have to do with Sirius’s collarbones. “The nickname?”</p><p>Sirius shakes his head fondly. “No. Not anymore. Now it just reminds me of…” He trails off, clears his throat and starts gathering the breakfast plates. “You done, Lily?”</p><p>“Yeah,” She says gently. “Thanks.”</p><p>Remus knows he’s missed something, knows there’s more to the story. And <em>God</em>, how he wants to know more. How he wants to know every story Sirius has to tell. How he wants to know everything about Sirius. Not now, though. For now, he helps gather the dishes and he and Sirius bump hips occasionally as they stand side-by-side at the kitchen sink. The whole thing feels…nice, the four of them sitting around a table sharing food and stories about things past. The two of them washing breakfast dishes. The warmth that seeps through Sirius’s skin and into his when they brush hands. It feels right. It all feels right.</p><p>Sirius excuses himself around eleven, having to head back to the parish to set up for noon Mass. And oh, right. That’s the problem, Remus remembers. <em>Wrong</em>, he thinks. <em>Wrong wrong wrong. </em></p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p><strong>Slippery slope argument/fallacy</strong>: An argument that the allowance of one thing will inevitably lead to the allowance of other, more "negative" things. In anti-gay Christian discourse, the argument goes something like, "if we condone homosexuality, what's next? Incest? Bestiality? People having sex with dead people?" (the last one is an argument I have actually heard in a Christian Theology class). </p><p><strong>Godly marriage</strong>: Also called "God's design for marriage", there's A Lot Going On Here(tm). But usually it alludes to women being in a subservient role to men, procreation being the main goal of marriage, and marriage being distinctly between one man and one woman. </p><p>(Also, the sentence “[that’s] funny because women are so inferior” is from Gloria in Modern Family. Don’t sue me.)</p>
        </blockquote></div></div>
<a name="section0015"><h2>15. John 1:5</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Summary for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
            <p>Christmas. You know?</p>
          </blockquote><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>Hello, dearies!</p><p>I'm a bit late with this chapter, but it's longer than normal. It contains (relatively mild) smut, and if you want more specific info before reading, check the end notes. The glossary is there too.</p><p>Stay well!</p></blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>By the time the third Sunday of Advent rolled around, Sirius was too busy to think about anything other than making it through that day’s Mass with the increase in attendance that always accompanies a major holiday. The church secretary was out sick, so in addition to writing homilies and giving instructions to the altar boys, he was sending out the weekly newsletter and tidying the sanctuary. And then there was the increased demand for confession (Christmas being a time when congregants seemed especially keen to atone for their sins) and house calls (Christmas being a time when housebound congregants were especially lonely) and last rites (Christmas being a time when lots of congregants die), and throughout it all, he barely had time to check his phone.</p><p>And, okay, so that was convenient. So, it happened to coincide with a strong desire to throw his phone off a bridge and never look at it again. So, it offered an entirely legitimate excuse to cancel plans with James and Lily and not (yet!) return Remus’s calls. It wasn’t his fault that this <em>mild </em>personal and emotional breakdown happened to coincide with the busiest time of the year, was it? It wasn’t as if he <em>planned </em>it that way!</p><p>At 11 PM on the third Sunday of Advent, Sirius sits cross-legged on his sofa, unlocking his phone for what must be the ninetieth time that evening and scrolling his call log to Remus’s name, only to lock it again. It’s too late to call now anyway. It’s too late in the <em>evening </em>to call now anyway, and maybe it’s – maybe it’s <em>too late </em>period.</p><p>It’s been a week. Or – no – two.</p><p>Three?</p><p>It’s been at least two purple candles.</p><p>It’s been too long.</p><p>Remus called him the morning after the morning after. That was a Sunday. And he couldn’t answer his phone on a <em>Sunday</em>, not a Sunday <em>morning </em>especially, and did Remus even <em>mean </em>to call him? Wouldn’t Remus, too, be finalizing his sermon notes and greeting his early congregants? It was probably an accident, that first call, and the one that came that evening was probably an accident too. And the one that came Monday. The one that came Wednesday may have been intentional, but Sirius only had half an hour before Wednesday Mass so…and then…</p><p>And then nothing.</p><p>A text from a few minutes after that call – <em>let me know when you’re ready to talk. </em>– and then nothing.</p><p>Sirius reaches for his waistband, draws back, reaches again. He stands, paces the living room, sits back down, picks up his phone. Unlock, scroll, lock. Unlock, scroll, <em>almost </em>press…lock. He stands. He paces. He opens a beer. He pours it down the sink. He walks to the bathroom to splash water on his face, reaches for his waistband, pushes down his sweatpants and briefs, brushes tentatively over his half-hard cock. Recoils, turns on the shower, steps in. Turns it colder. Turns it colder. Turns it <em>colder</em>. Comes anyway, shivering. Gets in bed. Forgets his phone on the couch. Misses his alarm.</p><p>This isn’t going to work.</p><p>“Is this some kind of joke?” He asks the ceiling, when he finally wakes up at half past nine. The ceiling doesn’t respond.</p><p>No, this really isn’t going to work.</p><p>But the solution eludes him. And when that happens, Sirius tends to just ignore the problem. Except now it’s 9:45 on a Monday morning, and he should have been up three hours ago, and there’s no <em>way </em>he’ll get everything done today that he needs to, and he’s out of orange juice, and it’s less than two weeks to Christmas, and…</p><p>And…</p><p>He has feelings. Big ones. For a <em>Protestant</em>.</p><p>“Okay,” He says to himself. “Okay,” He says to the ceiling.</p><p>Okay, he doesn’t have the solution. Not yet anyway. What he <em>does </em>have is a to-do list a mile long, an empty refrigerator, and the hardest hard-on he’s woken up to since he was a teenager. And he has a phone. He has a phone and people who love him and a <em>very </em>cute boy, Protestant or not.</p><p><em>I’m not ready yet, </em>he types out to Remus. And then – <em>I’m sorry. </em><em>I hope I will be soon</em>.</p><p>And he means that. He really does.</p><p> </p><p>-*-</p><p> </p><p>Remus sits cross-legged on his couch, poking three-inch taper candles into round cardstock disks. He forgot to ask for volunteers to prepare the vigil candles this year, but there’s also something mindlessly enjoyable about it. It brings back memories of sitting on the living room floor with his mom, peeling the wax from the sides of the half-burned candles leftover from the Christmas before, snipping the blackened parts of the wick so they looked new. Hope was always the one to gather the Christmas Eve candles after the service. She stored them in the rotting shed in the yard, covering the mildewed box with a quilt to keep the raccoons out.</p><p>These candles are new. He pastors a church that can afford new candles. If <em>that’s </em>not something, he doesn’t know what is.</p><p>He passes the time thinking about Hope. He’ll call her when he’s done, but right now she won’t be home. She’ll be next door at the Millers, frying a few pork sausages for Mr. Miller’s dinner and listening with sharp, Appalachia ears for the sound of the landline. She’s fallen down those steps once already this year, and Remus doesn’t like to think about what would happen if she fell a second time. So he’ll wait until he’s sure she’s home.</p><p>In the back of his mind – where he’s taken up residence ever since that night at Griphook <em>months </em>ago now – is Sirius. Every other minute or so, he’ll travel briefly to the front of Remus’s mind, when a song comes over the Bluetooth speaker that reminds Remus of Sirius’s eyes, or when Remus glances at the throw pillow he distinctly remembers Sirius eyeing when Sirius was at his house. Remus pushes him back. There’s nothing he can do about it, anyway, nothing but wait for something that may never come at all.</p><p>Except now he’s out of candles. Three hundred white, waxy things poked through paper so the dripping wax doesn’t burn the (mostly) white hands of his congregation, and that’s more than enough to cover all three services. But he wishes there were more, because the mindless task has helped him keep Sirius in the back of his mind, where he belongs.</p><p>He thinks about texting Sirius.</p><p>He thinks about calling Sirius.</p><p>He thinks about getting in his damn car and <em>driving </em>to Sirius.</p><p>He doesn’t do any of these things. He doesn’t do any of these things because Sirius isn’t ready, because Sirius <em>said </em>he isn’t ready. He doesn’t text any of his other partners either – because he wouldn’t really be thinking about them, would he? – so instead he sits down at his desk and stares at his open Study Bible, turned to the first chapter of John and mocking him for how little he’s thought about his Christmas Eve sermon.</p><p><em>In the beginning was the Word</em>, John says to him.</p><p> </p><p>-*-</p><p> </p><p>Sirius hates Christmas.</p><p>Sirius is a priest who hates Christmas. And it has nothing to do with the celebration itself, even <em>if </em>there is no definitive proof that Christ really was born in December. It’s not even the increased workload, the burden of the Christmas and Easter Catholics he’s never met before. Sirius loves candles, and hymns, and Mary. Sirius <em>loves </em>Mary.</p><p>But Sirius hates his family.</p><p>Sirius is a priest who hates his family. And Good Catholics aren’t supposed to <em>hate </em>anything. They’re supposed to chastise and ostracize and condemn, maybe, but they aren’t supposed to hate.</p><p>Sirius is a priest who does a lot of things priests aren’t supposed to do.</p><p>Sirius can’t recall a time when he ever liked Christmas. Growing up, he heard tales of children keeping themselves up as late as their little eyes would let them, hoping for a glimpse of Santa Clause, waking early on Christmas morning to race downstairs. Trees and presents and cinnamon rolls and TV specials. But for as long as he could remember, Sirius would stay in bed on Christmas morning until his mother came to shake him from his pretend sleep, stuff him into a tailored suit, slick his hair back with Hugo Boss hair gel, and force him down the grand staircase. They had a tree (twelve feet tall and tastefully decorated with white and gold baubles) and they had presents (fountain pens and Polos and, one year, an actual horse, which were laid out unwrapped on the dining room table while empty boxes in gold wrapping paper and elaborate bows sat under the tree), but Christmas morning wasn’t about either of those things. Christmas morning was about The Picture.</p><p>Once a year, Christmas morning, the Blacks donned their fanciest clothes and happiest smiles and stood in front of a giant dead fern while a photographer making $2,000 an hour lined them into the proper order and snapped a hundred of the same exact photo. That photo went out to every employee at Orion’s firm, every distant relative of Walburga’s in Madrid, every local newspaper and magazine and, once, French Vogue. The progression – year after year – was minimal at best, with Sirius and Regulus growing in height and Orion growing in girth and Walburga cosmetically altered to look more or less exactly the same.</p><p>Sirius intentionally shrunk his smile over the years, into as thin a line as he could get away with, and the last Christmas photo he is in, he is hardly more than smirking. The last Christmas he spent at home, he argued all morning with Walburga over everything he could think of. She pulled his tie too tight and clawed her sharp fingernails into his shoulder to keep him in the proper posture – shoulders down, back straight – and by the end of the day, Sirius had locked himself in his room, broken open his $1,500 Montegrappa fountain pen, and used the ink to give himself his first stick-and-poke.</p><p>Christmases were better at the Potters, but he never truly learned to enjoy them.</p><p>Now it’s 6:45 on Christmas Eve, and the five o’clock Mass is behind him. The midnight Mass still looms, but he could fit in a nap. Or a meal. Or both, even.</p><p>He doesn’t want either.</p><p>He checks his watch, he looks something up on Google, and then he makes a choice the only way he ever seems to make choices these days – quickly and impulsively and with not enough forethought to talk himself out of it. He leaves his vestments on the hook behind his office door, locks the church doors behind him, and kicks his motorcycle into gear.</p><p>He arrives just as the opening verses of “O Come, O Come, Emmanuel” are playing and sneaks in the back.</p><p>It’s always a little odd, seeing other clergy in their role. It’s like knowing a secret of theirs, like knowing something no one else knows. It’s <em>always </em>a little odd. But odd isn’t necessarily how Sirius would describe the feeling that comes over him when he takes a seat in the pew partially hidden by a column and glimpses Remus, cloaked in a tie and a stole and sitting unassumingly a few paces from the lectern. And it’s not just the simplicity of the sanctuary, the sharp contrast of the green carpet and the simple, quilted altar cover and the lack of a dais to the pomp and circumstance of most Catholic churches. It's <em>Remus</em>, the contented smile on his face as the choir sings and the way he watches studiously as a young girl no older than sixteen reads from the New Testament. The way he closes his eyes towards the end of the passage. The way he mouths ‘amen’ for no one but himself.</p><p>And Sirius is…</p><p>And Remus stands, walks to the lectern, places his hands atop it on either side, begins to speak.</p><p>And Sirius is…</p><p>And without a dais, Remus is on the same level as the entire congregation, and that’s true literally but it’s also true emotionally, intellectually. Remus is meeting his congregation where they are, not forcing them to walk to him or stare up at him or bow down to him, but <em>meeting </em>them. Sirius begins to feel like it’s not just <em>him </em>who Remus knew how to meet in the terrible, awkward, holy place, but <em>everyone</em>.</p><p>And Remus begins to preach, and <em>fuck, </em>he’s preaching without a manuscript, and Sirius couldn’t do that if his life <em>depended </em>on it, and Remus fucking <em>belongs </em>there. He’s talking about Greek translations and mistranslations and it’s not pretentious, not even a little, it’s poetry coming from his mouth.</p><p>And Sirius…</p><p>“And have you ever wanted to hold something so closely that it starts to become you?” Remus is asking his congregation.</p><p>
  <em>Yes.</em>
</p><p>“Have you ever wanted to absorb something into you so <em>fully </em>that bits of it start to overshadow bits of you?”</p><p>
  <em>Yes. </em>
</p><p>And Remus is preaching on John 1:5, on darkness and light and one overcoming the other. And Remus is preaching on the birth of Jesus – because it’s Christmas Eve, after all – but he’s also preaching on so much more than the birth of Jesus. And Remus can’t possibly know that Sirius is sitting in his audience, because Sirius hasn’t taken his eyes off Remus since he sat down and he’d <em>know </em>if Remus had noticed him, but Remus is preaching to <em>him</em>. And Sirius looks around, and he can see that Remus is preaching to every individual sitting in the congregation right now, every one, and even the toddlers perk up a little because now – and Sirius lost the thread a little, his mind being somewhere in the vague vicinity of his body – Remus is preaching about nightlights.</p><p>And…</p><p>And Sirius never had a nightlight growing up, he remembers suddenly for absolutely no logical reason. Sirius wasn’t allowed one. Sirius was always told “nightlights are for sissies” and “there’s nothing to be afraid of in the dark anyway, Sirius” and “you’re too old for this” and he wonders if that’s where it started. He wonders if that’s when he began hiding bits of himself in the darkness. He wonders if he internalized the belief that darkness is for men, for fear or the ignorance of it, for scary things you don’t call scary and hope they, in turn, won’t jump out at you.</p><p>For secrets.</p><p>He wonders if Remus had a nightlight. If that’s why he’s free. And then he hears the tone of the sermon swell, the words and the spaces between them growing longer, the metaphors climbing into the peak of a bubbling volcano that erupts <em>just </em>when it’s supposed to, because Remus is a master of this particular craft and Sirius doesn’t know how he ever would have guessed differently.</p><p>And then, Remus spots him. He can pinpoint the exact second that it happens, because Remus’s eyes go just a little wider, just wide enough that Remus can see them glint in the flicker of the altar candles. He doesn’t miss a beat, but he keeps his eyes trained on Sirius, not blinking or moving or backing away as he concludes his sermon. “Nothing scary can survive in the light,” Remus says.</p><p>And Sirius suddenly knows that’s true.</p><p>And Sirius doesn’t look away either.</p><p>And Sirius is in love with him.</p><p> </p><p>-*-</p><p> </p><p>He waits in the wings of the fellowship hall as congregants process out. Some still hold their lit candles from the Silent Night processional, while others blow them out the second they step out of the sanctuary. He watches as parents zip their children into puffy coats and engage in idle chatter with each other, congregants shooting “Merry Christmas!” and “say hi to the family for me!” to each other before they walk out into the night. He does <em>not </em>stare at Remus or the way his forearms flex as he shakes hands, does <em>not </em>watch him lean down to accept a small, clumsily wrapped Christmas gift from a young child. He steps outside (easy enough, as he had certainly <em>not </em>been feeling <em>any </em>kind of jealousy as he watched Remus give a hug to a young, handsome parishioner) and leans against his motorcycle to smoke a cigarette.</p><p>He’s looking idly up at the stars, noticing how they’re a little dimmer here than in Brookhaven, when a voice startles him from his entirely non-sexual thoughts.</p><p>“You smoke?” The voice asks, and Sirius turns quickly to find Remus fitting his hands into striped gloves.</p><p>“No,” Sirius replies quickly, stamping out the cigarette under the toe of his boot. “Not usually. I – sorry.”</p><p>“You don’t have to apologize,” Remus chuckles, stuffing his gloved hands into his coat pockets. “I was just going to ask if I could bum one.”</p><p>So they stand, both leaning up against Sirius’s motorcycle, smoking in silence and looking up at the slightly dimmer stars.</p><p>“What are you doing here?” Remus finally asks. It’s curious, not accusing, but Sirius watches Remus’s hands fidget around the butt of his cigarette and feels a little bit accused anyway.</p><p>“I don’t know,” He replies honestly. “I don’t know what I’m doing…” The ‘here’ never comes, because the statement is truer without it.</p><p>Remus begins digging at the asphalt with the tip of his oxford, putting his hands back into his pockets save the two fingers he keeps free to grasp his cigarette.</p><p>“You’re a fucking brilliant preacher,” Sirius says.</p><p>Remus smiles a shy little smile. “Thanks. I’m alright.”</p><p>“No,” Sirius says. “Not ‘alright’. You’re <em>incredible</em>. You’re…the best I’ve ever seen, honestly.”</p><p>“Yeah well, Catholics can’t preach, so your sample size is skewed.”</p><p>Sirius is overcome with the overwhelming urge to fight back hard against Remus’s self-deprecation, but he resists it.</p><p>“I don’t know what I’m doing here,” Sirius says again. Maybe he can start with small truths, can ease himself into it. “I wanted to see you.”</p><p>Remus doesn’t respond. He continues digging at the asphalt, bringing a little pile of loose gravel to the surface. Sirius considers apologizing, for not calling or texting or for getting himself into this mess to begin with. But he resists that too.</p><p>“Remus,” He does say, though the name constricts his throat. Remus turns his head only just enough to look up at Sirius through dark eyelashes. “This is really scary for me.”</p><p>Truths. Darkness. Nightlights.</p><p>Remus nods.</p><p>“I don’t know what this means,” Sirius says.</p><p>Truths.</p><p>“But I really, <em>really </em>want to be with you,” He finishes.</p><p>Light. And out here – in the glow of Remus and cigarette embers and slightly dimmer stars – the fear really doesn’t survive.</p><p>Remus takes a big breath through his nose, considering Sirius. “Come with me,” He says, with a little nod.</p><p>Remus starts to walk away. Sirius wedges his own ungloved hands into his jacket pockets and snuffs out his cigarette under his toe, and follows. He follows Remus around the corner, out of view of the now near-empty parking lot and down a small flight of stairs that opens out onto a cobblestone pathway. Sirius continues to walk a few paces behind Remus, who follows the pathway through a thicket of maple trees that begin to obscure the brick of the church behind them. They walk a few minutes, until Remus finally stops at what Sirius realizes is a small, white building, its steepled roof leading to a small finial, a cross that stands only slightly taller than the trees.</p><p>“Where are we?” Sirius asks.</p><p>Remus pulls his keys from his coat and begins fiddling with the large padlock securing the peeling white door to its frame. “This is the original church,” He explains. "The one we use now was built in the sixties." He pulls the chain through the handle and the door creaks open on its own. Remus pushes it open further, standing outside it and motioning for Sirius to enter first. It’s as romantic as it is eerie, the hinges creaking and the moonlight illuminating what Sirius realizes is a dirt floor.</p><p>Sirius steps inside, a gust of cold air hitting him as he does. The church is a single room, no bigger than a few hundred square feet. A few dirty windows line each wall, letting in just enough light for Sirius to see where he is going. On the far end of the room – where the pastor would have stood, Sirius supposes – two small, stained-glass windows bracket an enormous wooden cross nearly the height of the tallest part of the steepled roof. Something about the sight takes his breath away. The stained-glass windows are pristine, clean and shining and letting in little rays of colorful moonlight. The cross is made of wood, the solid kind, the fresh-from-the-tree kind, and Sirius imagines it is so heavy it couldn’t be moved from the building without tearing the whole thing down.</p><p>“I don’t know why they haven’t demolished it,” Remus explains from somewhere behind Sirius. Sirius turns again to look at him, making out not much more than his silhouette. “But I think it’s kind of beautiful.”</p><p>Sirius agrees, and not just about the church.</p><p>“Back when this building was in use,” Remus continues, “Duncan was barely a town. Black people weren’t allowed in here, back then.”</p><p>Something catches in Sirius’s throat, but he intentionally pushes it through, taking a few steps toward Remus.</p><p>“Wonder what they’d think of you as their pastor?”</p><p>Sirius can almost hear Remus’s mouth shape itself into a wry smile. “Probably nothing good,” Remus replies. “But that’s what makes it special, I guess. The way things change.”</p><p>Now Sirius lets the thing catch in his throat. The two of them can’t see each other’s eyes clearly in the sparsely lit room, but Sirius knows they are staring right at each other. He hears more than sees Remus approach him, feels a shift in the atoms near his arms before Remus places his hands there.</p><p>“I’m glad you’re here,” Sirius says. And he means the church, the institution, but he also means the literal space, because the heat from Remus’s hands goes right through his gloves, right through the thick leather of Sirius’s jacket and straight to the skin underneath.</p><p>“You could be here, too,” Remus says. That makes less sense to Sirius, but more sense than it would have an hour ago.</p><p>Sirius is going to say that, is going to tell Remus that he thinks Remus’s sermon has maybe changed something vital inside of him, but before he can get the words out, Remus is kissing him. His lips are cold and a little chapped, and Sirius immediately opens his mouth for more. Remus gives Sirius his tongue, slips his hands inside Sirius’s jacket and grips his sides. They both taste of tobacco, and Sirius doesn’t know if he begins walking backwards or Remus begins walking forwards, but his back hits something cold and sharp and Remus pins him to it, one hand next to Sirius’s head and the other tightening on Sirius’s hip.</p><p>Remus bites Sirius's lower lip, and the sharpness of it hits him just as he realizes what it is he’s leaning against. “Take out your cock,” Remus says to him, and Sirius mustn’t mind too much, because he undoes his fly quickly and reaches a freezing cold hand around himself, pulling out his penis while Remus pins him against a 20-foot-tall cross once worshiped inside a segregated church.</p><p>A zing of sharp, bright pleasure shoots through his body, lands everywhere except his cock, which flags flaccid against the band of his underwear. Remus drops to his knees, braces his gloved hands firmly against Sirius’s hips and sucks Sirius into his mouth. Sirius hisses, resting his head back against the cross as Remus sucks him down, over and over. The pleasure stays, in Sirius’s fingertips and knees and the back of his neck and down his spine, and his cock doesn’t harden. It doesn’t fill at all and Remus doesn’t seem to mind one bit, just sucks Sirius’s soft cock into his mouth and swirls his tongue around it and keeps Sirius pinned against the cross.</p><p>“Remus, I–”</p><p>Sirius is going to apologize, maybe. For his cock, for his shame, but Remus shakes his head. He keeps slurping Sirius into his throat, moans around him and <em>fuck</em>. It isn’t arousal Sirius feels, not the kind he’s used to, but it’s – it’s desire, hot and splintery and he wants Remus to keep swallowing him. He wants Remus to keep sucking on his soft dick, to keep licking at the tip when not an ounce of precum is leaking from it. He wants Remus to take his desire, to hold it on his tongue, to wrap his lips around it, and Remus does. Remus just keeps sucking.</p><p>Sirius gives into it. He closes his eyes and rests his head against the cracked wood, pushes against Remus’s hands just for the feel of his fingertips biting into Sirius’s flesh. He moans, long and full. “Yes,” He says into the room. “Yes,” He says to Remus. “Please.” Remus just moans back, over and over, answering him.</p><p>Remus has his eyes closed too, Sirius knows because he pushes his hand through Remus’s hair and thumbs over the soft skin of the lids, thumbs up Remus’s forehead and deeper into his mass of curls. <em>Down </em>and <em>down </em>and <em>down</em>, Remus sucks him, letting his cock go just to the tip, just to the place where it would otherwise drop limply back against his balls, and then <em>down</em>.</p><p>It’s <em>hours</em>, maybe, and if not hours than minutes, and minutes is more than he’s ever let anyone suck his flaccid cock, but finally Sirius opens his eyes. He looks down and white moonlight through red stained glass reveals Remus on his knees, his pants pushed down and his cock out – very hard, indeed – and his ungloved fist moving quickly up and down his own shaft. Something about the sight of Remus, wanking himself while he holds Sirius in his mouth, is not entirely human. Sirius feels things he’s maybe never felt, things that translate themselves into words that flash up behind the eyes he closes again just to see them. <em>Precious</em>, he sees. And <em>beloved</em>. And then just letters, and then just sparks.</p><p>Remus stills, holds Sirius’s cock in his mouth and groans around it. The groan is deep and full-bodied and guttural and Sirius opens his eyes just in time to watch a shiver move up Remus’s body. Remus rests Sirius’s cock against his tongue and strokes himself through a long climax, moaning in such a way it’s like he’s sharing the orgasm with Sirius.</p><p>“Give me your cum.” Sirius has no idea what makes him say it, just that he wants to taste what it feels like to come from sucking a soft cock against a cross in an abandoned church.</p><p>Remus lets Sirius’s cock drop from his lips and gets to his feet. Sirius doesn’t know if he’s slouching or if Remus really is suddenly a whole foot taller than him, but he towers over Sirius, backlit by stained glass and offering Sirius his spunk-stained fingers.</p><p>Sirius drops his bottom lip but does not lean forward, wanting <em>desperately </em>and <em>suddenly </em>and <em>desirously </em>for Remus to push his fingers past Sirius’s lips, for Remus to feed him his cum and push down on Sirius’s tongue and make him taste it. Remus pushes his fingers into Sirius’s mouth, but it’s Sirius who wraps his tongue around them so thoroughly that he can taste every note of Remus’s spunk. <em>Sour </em>here, and <em>tart </em>there, and <em>salty </em>on the tip of his tongue, and <em>sweet </em>towards the back. He licks in between the crevices of his knuckles and tries to swallow them, truly, swallow Remus right down his throat.</p><p>Remus stares. He stares down at Sirius and watches his fingers disappear into Sirius’s mouth. Sirius hopes Remus is remembering that he wasn’t allowed here once, hopes he’s remembering that he can do whatever he wants now, hopes that if he swallows enough of Remus, maybe he can feel some of that, too.</p><p>And then Remus pulls his fingers from Sirius’s mouth, wipes them on the cross, and bends down to taste himself on Sirius’s tongue.</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p><strong>John 1:1-5</strong>: Iz my favorite, could you tell? Here it is in the English Standard Version, because the NRSV doesn't do it justice. (Excuse the gendered language. It's the Bible.) "In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God. All things were made through him, and without him was not any thing made that was made. In him was life, and the life was the light of men. The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it."</p><p><strong>Two purple candles</strong>: A reference to the Advent wreath, on which there are five candles total, three purple, one pink, and one white (in the center). A candle is lit for each of the four Sundays of Advent, and the white candle is lit on Christmas Eve (or day, depending on denomination). Two purple candles would indicate two Sundays.</p><p><strong>Last rites</strong>: A Catholic sacrament (or rather, series of sacraments) performed by a priest when someone is approaching death. </p><p><strong>"Christmas and Easter Catholics" (also CEOs, Two-Timers, Convenience Catholics, etc.)</strong>: A (somewhat derogatory) term for Catholics who attend Mass only twice a year, at Christmas and Easter. </p><p><strong>Vestments</strong>: Clergy garments. I know - just call them that, right?</p><p><strong>Lectern</strong>: Pulpit. It's a pulpit. It's just a slightly less arrogant word for it. </p><p><strong>Preaching without a manuscript</strong>: An impossible task done only by superheroes and (maybe) Christ himself. (It's just preaching without a pre-written script of what you are going to say. It's still a bananas thing to do. Much more common in more charismatic churches, much less common in less charismatic churches. Remus's church is not charismatic.)</p><p>In this chapter, there’s a blowjob against a cross. If that offends you, I’m sorry, and also, I'm not sure you're gonna Have A Good Time with the rest of this fic. </p><p>Also, the sermon Remus preaches is mine, a.k.a. one I have actually preached. Please don't take it. (Not that you would.)</p>
        </blockquote></div></div>
<a name="section0016"><h2>16. Genesis</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>Hello, my dudes.</p>
<p>This chapter is late and short. I know. It's not that I forgot, it's that it took five rewrites to get right. It's right now. The next chapter is coming in just a few days, so I hope that makes up for it.</p>
<p>Also, I am super behind on replying to comments. I am seeing them and reading them and they are giving me joy and motivation, I promise. One day soon I'll catch up with them. CW for some minor race stuff and very small allusions to marital unrest and addiction. Short glossary is in the end notes. </p>
<p>Stay well, please, my dears.</p></blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Remus found out he was biracial on the first day of kindergarten. That was the first time he realized that there were kids who were darker than him, kids with two Black parents instead of one. The kids Remus had grown up playing with were all light-skinned, blonde-haired and brown-eyed. They were the kids of the other daddies like his daddy, the kids who also lived on the outskirts of the outskirts, tiny trailers on large plots and fathers who came home at night coughing something nasty and smoking in front of the TV anyway. If those kids made fun of him, he never heard them, save the one time little Robbie Fenwick asked him if his mama covered herself in coal to look that way. If that’s why she was so dark. Remus hadn’t ever <em>seen </em>Hope do that, but he asked her anyway, just to be sure. Robbie didn’t mean anything by it, though. He was just curious.</p>
<p>Something must have happened in between then and kindergarten, some burgeoning kid race consciousness, because suddenly, Remus wasn’t the same anymore, wasn’t curious and half-coal-covered, but a little bit different. A little bit not like the others. That was okay, too. He made twice the friends. The white kids tended to stick with the white kids and the Black kids with the Black kids, and Remus could flit between them, little black-and-white-spotted butterfly migrating between two worlds.</p>
<p>It wasn’t until fourth grade when it got complicated, really. Lyall lost his job, and Hope picked up the slack, taking a spot on a manufacturing line that required them to move – from the outskirts of the outskirts to that bit that isn’t quite a town but wants to be. Hope would joke that they moved from the sticks to the pine needles, thinner and dryer and still clinging to the tree. There, the elementary school had multiple classes for each grade, had buses that picked Remus up in the morning because it was too far to walk. There, Hope worked long hours and Lyall made different friends, friends who’d also lost their jobs and sat around drinking Jim Beam from the bottle and called Hope names Remus quickly learned were reserved for women with coal-dark skin.</p>
<p>Remus wasn’t as wanted there – by the white kids or the Black ones. Sometimes they’d taunt him, sing <em>one of these things is not like the other</em>. Mostly, it was okay. But what’s more, other things got murkier too. When it was time to start liking girls, Remus did, but not just. When it was time to start playing Little League and trapping snakes in homemade cages and chewing willow bark pretending it was tobacco, Remus did, but not just.</p>
<p>Middle school came, and then high school, and Lyall’s friends got meaner. Hope got small bonuses but never promotions. Some kids were nice to Remus, and some very mean, and he didn’t tell anyone about the <em>but not just</em>. He might have, if not for the pine needles, if he had access to a public library with a computer, if Hope was ever awake when he got home from school. As it was, he didn’t, and without it being explicitly spoken, it simmered under the lid of silence. If Remus was able to decipher the not-so-coded language Pastor Brown used sometimes on Sunday mornings, he might have kept it under that lid forever. But he was always too distracted by the way Pastor Brown wiped his sweaty brow with his lapel and didn’t even seem to notice he was doing it, by how sweet Hope’s voice sounded singing Amazing Grace, but how she rubbed his back during the sermon even when he was far too old to warrant it. He was too relieved for church to be the one place Lyall and his friends never dared set foot, too happy under the cover of industrial air conditioning and the stories of the parables. He knew Hope loved Jesus and her son and making sweet potato pie, and that was good enough for him.</p>
<p>No one was prouder when he got a scholarship to State than Hope was. No one. It was her pride that convinced him to go, that helped him look past his unease about leaving Hope alone with Lyall, who by then was not only a drunk but a lung cancer patient, too. He wouldn’t have gone, if Hope hadn’t pulled him aside a week before freshman orientation, given him a little jewelry box with a tiny cross made of real gold, and told him, “You’ve got to go, baby. You’ve got to go become yourself.” Remus didn’t know what she meant at the time. Remus had been himself for eighteen years already. But he knew the cross must have cost Hope months of saved-up wages, knew she held wisdom he never would, and went anyway.</p>
<p>Two weeks into a freshman theology seminar, Remus realized what it was he’d been hiding, what Pastor Brown had been saying, why he couldn’t let it simmer under its lid anymore. A Muslim girl sat next to him, and having never met one of those before, he figured maybe she was the perfect person to tell that he wasn’t sure he’d ever really met himself before, either. He broke down to her, one night, said “It feels like everything’s ending.”</p>
<p>Lily put her arms around him, held his head to her chest, and said, “Or maybe it’s just beginning.”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>-*-</p>
<p> </p>
<p>In the beginning, Remus and Sirius wake up wrapped around each other on Christmas morning. It’s terribly sweaty, even in December, but it feels so good they cuddle in closer to each other.</p>
<p>In the beginning, Sirius gets up first and pours perfect, smooth pancake batter into perfect, round circles that crisp on the sides and stay pale in the middle. He adds chocolate chips to Remus’s and leaves his own plain. He brings real maple syrup from home, and leaves it in Remus’s fridge. Remus sees it every time he goes for the milk. He likes it there.</p>
<p>In the beginning, they kiss on New Year’s Eve. They are “nothing” yet, they are “new”, “still figuring it out”. They are “probably not going anywhere, Lily, I mean, consider the circumstances” and “I don’t know, James, okay? I don’t know.” They kiss anyway.</p>
<p>Then it’s past midnight. It’s a new year entirely. It’s a new year and James has his arms around Lily’s stomach, planting suckling kisses to her cheek that make her giggle and twist in his arms. Her red hair starts to peak out from under her black and gold hijab, and she’s enjoying herself so much she doesn’t immediately fix it. Peter is there too, having flown in from Chicago like he does every New Year’s Eve, this time toting a new girlfriend and a kind of forced ease Remus suspects is born from instructions from James not to say anything. About anything. About <em>them</em>. Six people, crowded around a bonfire in James and Lily’s backyard, split up into three groups of two, but…</p>
<p><em>One of these things is not like the other</em>, Remus hums to himself.</p>
<p>“What?” Sirius asks.</p>
<p>“Nothing,” Remus responds.</p>
<p>“Come with me to get more beer?” Sirius asks.</p>
<p>They have enough beer. But they break off from the group anyway and climb into James’s sedan, and Sirius is the more sober of the two, so he drives. It’s not far to the liquor store in James’s neighborhood, which is fancy and expensive and <em>closed</em>, it being past midnight on a holiday.</p>
<p>Sirius keeps the engine running for the heat but unbuckles his seatbelt. Remus looks at the cursive sign of the liquor store. He wonders if they even sell Jim Beam in there. He wonders if Sirius is going to kiss him.</p>
<p>“Remus?” Sirius says.</p>
<p>Remus looks at him. He wonders if Sirius is regretting everything yet. He wonders how they’re going to do this. He wonders if Sirius has any biological siblings. He wonders why he hasn’t asked. He wonders if Sirius is going to kiss him.</p>
<p>“You realize we’ve never really had a conversation,” Remus says back.</p>
<p>Sirius tilts his head but nods. “I guess we haven’t.”</p>
<p>“I’d like to,” Remus says.</p>
<p>Sirius smiles. “I’d like that, too.”</p>
<p>“Are you going to kiss me?” Remus says.</p>
<p>Sirius smiles wider. “Yes,” He replies, and does.</p>
<p>They kiss for too many minutes and the car gets too hot and they drive back to James’s, rejoin the group without beer or explanation. Sirius takes Remus’s hand. Remus lets him.</p>
<p>“Remus?” Sirius says. “Whatever this is, I think that…I think that it’s good.”</p>
<p>And so it begins.</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p><strong>The parables</strong>: The parables are a series of Biblical stories that usually revolve around Jesus having a rather mundane or simple encounter with someone or a group of someones, but that convey a much deeper truth or tenant. The story of the Good Samaritan is one example, but there are lots. </p>
<p><strong>Genesis</strong>: The first book in both the Torah and Bible.</p>
        </blockquote></div></div>
<a name="section0017"><h2>17. Exodus</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>Hi, dears!</p><p>Hope you're well. There's a lot of Catholic lingo in this chapter. Translations are in the glossary. </p><p>Stay well please, beauties.</p></blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Sirius bought his first motorcycle on his last day of seminary. He needed a way to get himself from southern California to northern, and though Father Albus offered to come drive Sirius himself, Sirius politely turned him down. Sirius wanted a motorcycle. And after four years of intensive spiritual conditioning against his own desires, he drove it off the lot with Saint Christopher in his pocket and much less guilt than he’d expected. He shipped his belongings to the diocese and took off down the Pacific Coast Highway wondering what other things he might feel less guilty about than he expected.</p><p>Father Albus greeted him at the door of the large parsonage with a glass of wine, a hug, and what could only be described as…</p><p>Well…</p><p>Big Gay Energy.</p><p>Sirius didn’t ask. Albus told him. But Sirius <em>had </em>shown up on a bright red Ducati, wearing <em>actual chaps</em>, so the topic came up pretty naturally on night one.</p><p>And that was the night – after four years studying philosophy alongside James in undergrad and four years studying literal Catholicism in a sequestered compound an hour outside LA – Sirius Black discovered that priests have sex.</p><p>Albus didn’t tell him <em>that</em>. Not in those words. He talked poetic circles around the subject lubricated by too many glasses of Rioja and finally looked at Sirius, took his hand, and said, “You’ll know what to do. God will tell you.” Then he excused himself to bed, and Sirius polished off the bottle.</p><p>It wasn’t quite what he’d been expecting.</p><p>For the better part of a year, Sirius had no idea what God was telling him to do. He got to know his first ever parishioners and how to <em>actually </em>write a homily and what to <em>very much not say </em>to people in the hospital, and he continued to drink wine with Albus around a tiny patio table hidden under the barren grape vines that climbed the back of the parsonage they shared. He was happy. He was truly, actually happy.</p><p>And then Father Albus up and died.</p><p>Why that night was the night Sirius finally heard God telling him what to do was either divine intervention or poetic justice or Albus fucking with him from the afterlife, but Sirius drove straight from the funeral home to the gay district and fucked three consecutive men for the first time in as many consecutive years.</p><p>And didn’t feel guilty about it.</p><p>At least, not as much as he’d expected.</p><p>So, he kept going. First parishioners, fifth homilies, tenth hospital visits, twentieth glory holes. Less guilt than expected. And without Father Albus, nowhere to put any of it.</p><p>He tried telling James who, at that point, was elbow-deep in preparation for the Bar Exam and unprepared for the contents of the conversation. So, he alluded to them, and James was either too dense or too kind to ask follow-up questions. And who else would he tell? His friends from seminary? Mr. Potter? His <em>mom</em>? No, there was no one to tell. And so it wasn’t on <em>purpose </em>that it became such a secret, really, but with no one to talk about it with and no sex partners who wanted much to use their mouths for talking and too much sense to seek out any kind of consistent romantic relationship, it stayed secret. Grew even more secretive. Went underground. Buried itself in a room in the basement, dark and damp and unaccommodating. It still wasn’t guilt he felt, necessarily – at least, not as much as he’d expected – but it wasn’t nothing, either. It was limitation, constraint, a kind of metaphysical claustrophobia that closed in on him and then locked him in.</p><p>But then, there was him. Evan. Stunning. Sharp-featured, pale, pureblooded in a way Sirius could spot no matter how hard Evan tried to hide it. Evan wanted to talk. Evan wanted to go to vineyards and stroll bookstores and take fucking <em>hikes </em>for fuck’s sake, <em>hikes</em>. And Sirius couldn’t have turned him down even if he actually wanted to. Evan felt too much like a Black in the way Sirius felt like a Black – not wanting it but having it anyway, not knowing what to do with it and being unable to cast it off – and Sirius thought God meant that to be the way it was. On purpose. Evan was <em>his</em>, maybe, sent to him. Made for him. Evan was <em>good </em>but…but…</p><p>Evan wasn’t Catholic. Evan wasn’t religious. Evan was the kind of not-religious that is a religion in itself, that worships Richard Dawkins as its god, that makes shrines to Darwin and Camus and holds church by debating, by saying things like “opiate of the masses” entirely sincerely. Evan was an evangelist in his own right, took his missions to the Galapagos and Cuba and the Pacific Northwest. Evan thought the Potters religious zealots, fancied James – “the only one of them with any sense” – the only of them worth talking about. Evan <em>liked </em>Sirius’s profession, found it cute, found it sexy, liked feeding Sirius his cum and calling it communion. Evan thought Sirius would eventually change his mind.</p><p>Sirius didn't. Evan would avoid holding Sirius’s hand in public, would forego any displays of romantic affection until they got home or back to the car or safely behind the curtain of the dressing room. Evan thought the whole display was rather quaint, like a costume drama, and having no deference for the institution of religion anyway, just didn’t really <em>care </em>to think about the potential consequences of their relationship.</p><p>Their biggest fight occurred on a Sunday – the Lord’s day, the Sabbath day – after Evan decided to show up to a Sunday morning Mass. “I wanted to see what it was all about,” Evan said to Sirius, once a furious and red-faced Sirius had pulled him into his office. He said it with the air of a journalist or an anthropologist, someone studying the <em>quaint </em>habits of <em>quaint </em>people, and Sirius didn’t even have the wherewithal to be mad about that bit, because they could have gotten <em>caught</em>. “This isn’t a fucking joke,” Sirius said back, and Evan nodded, but smiled as if it was, indeed, nothing but a joke.</p><p>They carried on anyway. They didn’t discuss it again and Evan never tried to pull such a maneuver a second time. But it didn’t matter anyway, because they got caught.</p><p>Sirius never did find out exactly how. It didn’t matter. Father Albus was dead, his replacement keen on neither Rioja nor sexual indecency. Sirius was positively convinced he’d get fired, lose his job, his ordination, his <em>calling</em>, but it being ten-plus years since the Boston scandal and fifty-plus years since Vatican II, what Sirius actually got was reassigned.</p><p>Not immediately. Not painlessly. There were a great many lectures, a few mandated therapy sessions, a number of meetings with white men in white hats. There were tears. There was finally guilt. Evan hang in okay through the lectures and the meetings and even the therapy sessions, but it was the guilt that finally drove him away. He couldn’t justify it, couldn’t understand it, and must have realized, with an anticlimactic kind of finality, that Sirius wasn’t actually going to change his mind.</p><p>The diocese placed Sirius on administrative leave while they tried to figure out what to do with him. They paid for a small apartment in town, where Sirius waited. And cried. And waited. And felt a nearly unbearable amount of guilt. And waited. And got a therapist of his own. And didn’t have sex with anyone at all. And waited.</p><p>It was several months before he finally got a call from the Bishop himself, a man so old Sirius had to put his phone on full volume just to hear him. The conversation was short. What was the Bishop going to say to him, ten-plus years after Boston and fifty-plus years after Vatican II? He doled out no lectures or advice or penitential browbeating. He just said, “Child, you’re going south.” It took Sirius a few anxious seconds to realize he wasn’t speaking metaphorically.</p><p> </p><p>-*-</p><p> </p><p>“So what did you do? While you were on leave, I mean.”</p><p>They’re sitting at a bar table towards the back of a Cuban bistro a few doors down from Griphook. January had faded and with it the respite from impending holidays. Lent is less than a month away now.</p><p>Sirius puts down his beer and swallows. “Honestly? Not much.”</p><p>It’s still a little awkward. They are five weeks into this…thing. Five intentional, planned conversations. Five weeks of…well, of…</p><p>“Did you still date during that time?” Remus asks. He’s curious, but he doesn’t make Sirius feel like he’s being studied. So that’s better. “Or – I mean – did you still fuck, I guess. Did you still…”</p><p>“No,” Sirius replies quickly. “No, after Evan…” <em>Dumped me? Left? Ended our relationship? Decided I wasn’t worth it? </em>“It just didn’t seem the move, you know?”</p><p>Remus nods, but appears uncertain. “Because you might have gotten caught again?”</p><p>“Yeah,” Sirius replies. Except, “but not just that.”</p><p>Remus just leaves space for Sirius to continue. For Sirius not to continue. Just space. Expansive and wild and open.</p><p>Sirius takes a deep breath. He’ll get there – he’ll get back around to this – but first: “How did you eventually decide to become a minister? Like – what was it that drove you to make that choice?”</p><p>Remus shrugs, but it’s a little on the wrong end of too casual. “I’d always liked theology. I’d grown up in church. I needed something to do after college.”</p><p>“You’re being politic, though,” Sirius says, as if he knows Remus. But Remus smiles at him, nods a little in concession, so maybe – it’s just five weeks. Or five months. However the start of this <em>thing </em>can be qualified. – maybe he <em>does </em>know Remus. “Why did you make <em>that</em> choice?”</p><p>Remus smiles, conspiratorially. “You’re gonna make me say it, aren’t you?”</p><p>Sirius smiles back, nods.</p><p>“<em>Fine</em>,” Remus says. He squares his shoulders, wriggles a little into his seat. “God. God is what made me choose it. Happy?”</p><p>Sirius chuckles into his beer. “Yes. I’m happy.”</p><p>“How’d we end up talking about me?” Remus asks, taking a sip of his own beer.</p><p>“I had a point, I promise, I…” Sirius mimics Remus’s movements, squishing himself further into his barstool. His foot bumps Remus’s under the table, and he doesn’t think he imagines Remus’s eyes glint a little at the touch. “I think it’s a little bit crazy, to choose the clergy. I think it’s a little deranged, actually, a little self-important, I don’t think there’s a <em>good </em>reason to do it, but–”</p><p>“But God.”</p><p>And this, too, is new. The things Sirius didn’t discuss authentically with James back when James was in the church, and the things they didn’t discuss in anything but rage once he left. The things he’d never admit to his family, the Blacks or the Potters. The things Evan never <em>wanted </em>him to admit to. The things he discussed for four straight years at seminary, but always with a little sand between his teeth, always with a little bit of dishonesty, always just a little bit for show. The things no one would ever believe he didn’t, actually, know how to discuss – because he talks about God professionally, and all, for his literal <em>job </em>– but it’s different. It’s different when it’s not at all prescribed, when talking to someone who can hold the “yes, but” and “and also” and “fuck God, sometimes” and “fuck <em>me</em>, I don’t care what God thinks about it”. And all the things they aren’t saying, too – all the <em>other </em>reasons people choose the clergy, all the reasons even worse than no real reason at all.</p><p>“Right,” Sirius says, and smiles with the things he isn’t saying. “I know it’s a shit answer. But I don’t have another one.”</p><p>Remus looks at him thoughtfully, brushes his thumb briefly over Sirius’s hand across the table.</p><p>Sirius can tell that Remus has questions. He can practically hear the questions in his head – “But why Catholicism, then? Why not something else? Why a priest? Why not a deacon? Why back yourself into that corner to begin with?” But Remus doesn’t ask. And that’s kind of him. That’s lovely, and different, and <em>being met</em>, but…</p><p>Sirius shakes his head. “I don’t have a better answer right now, Remus.”</p><p>Remus doesn’t understand. Sirius can tell Remus doesn’t understand. Remus starts to say something, but stops himself. “Let’s get dessert, shall we?” Remus says instead. Sirius smiles, and not just at the thought of Arroz con Leche.</p><p>Sirius picks up the check this time and it’s not until they’re safely inside Remus’s car that Remus leans over to kiss him. It’s sweet, like condensed milk and cinnamon, and then grows hot and hungry. They lean into each other over the center console, Remus bringing his hand up to curl around the back of Sirius’s neck. Sirius pushes deeper into Remus’s mouth. He <em>wants </em>him, so badly, and the heat that starts to rise up his spine, that makes gooseflesh rise on his neck, starts to spread throughout every part of his body. Every part except his cock.</p><p>“Are you staying the night at mine?” Remus asks breathlessly, pulling away just enough to get the words out.</p><p>And <em>yes</em>, Sirius wants to stay the night. He wants to fall asleep next to Remus and wake up next to him, to make him more pancakes, to <em>fuck </em>him. <em>But</em>.</p><p>Sirius leans back into his seat, looking for the words he can’t even find in his own sense of understanding. “Yes,” He says. “I mean – I want to. But…I don’t know what’s—I don’t think I <em>can–</em>”</p><p>“No,” Remus says, grabbing Sirius’s hand. “That’s not what I meant. We can…watch a movie. Or just go to bed. I didn’t mean…”</p><p>“I’m sorry,” Sirius says. Again, he feels like he’s apologizing for more than the subject at hand.</p><p>“Sirius, I don’t mind. It’s not – I don’t mind. Okay?”</p><p>If there’s a voice in the back of Sirius’s head that says <em>you will mind, eventually</em>, then Sirius doesn’t hear it. He notices its absence, just long enough to recognize it, but then again, Remus isn’t Evan. This isn’t California. Father Albus is dead. His cock isn’t hard. So who knows what else he isn’t recognizing.</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p><strong>Saint Christopher</strong>: The patron saint of travelers and motorists. Also bachelors, epilepsy, storms, and toothaches. Saints are wild.</p><p><strong>Diocese</strong>: A specific district, each headed by a Bishop.</p><p><strong>Parsonage</strong>: Remember "rectory"? It's that. Just a dwelling designated for the clergy of a particular church. I should be consistent with my language, but I'm not. *shrug emoji*</p><p><strong>The Boston scandal </strong>: Alright, buckle up. This was the first major public US scandal involving sexual abuse at the hands of Catholic priests. Ever seen Spotlight? You should, it's great. Anyway, The Boston Globe was the newspaper to bring these particular allegations to light. The story broke in 2002, but the abuse had been going on for decades (realistically, centuries). The number of victims in the Boston area alone is estimated to be in the thousands. Hundreds of other scandals have since broken in nearly every major city in the US, as well as many internationally. Of particular note, Archdiocese (erm....heads of several diocese. Priest CEOs, if you will.) were shown to have repeatedly received complaints about a priest sexually abusing minors, and then simply reassigning that priest to another diocese. Over and over again. For decades. There's lots of theories on why sexual abuse appears to be so common amongst Catholic priests, and they're FASCINATING. But I won't make you read about them here.</p><p><strong>Vatican II</strong>: Okay, it's like if the Harry Potter fandom decided to collectively get together to discuss Important Matters(tm), except it's just thousands of men in robes. Vatican II was particularly dedicated to discussing how the Roman Catholic Church was going to address modernity. It took three years. A lot of decisions were made. Most of them are not important, like deciding a priest could face his congregation during services. Some of them - like deciding Catholicism should talk to some other religions too, maybe, and deciding war is mostly bad - were very significant. It was the Catholic Church becoming woke, but like, in the way the strict father in a period drama does when he finally lets his daughter go to the ball alone, you know?</p><p><strong>Bishop</strong>: The leader of a diocese and an associated group of clergy. Basically, a bishop is to a priest or minister what a priest or minster is to their congregation. </p><p><strong>Exodus</strong>: The second book of the Torah (out of 5) and the Bible (out of 66). It includes "The Exodus" (the Passover story), 40 days in the wilderness (or "in that dessert", if we're doing Fleabag references here), the first mention of the Ten Commandments, etc. It's basically about liberation, but how liberation from one thing necessitates obedience to another. Yeah, my use of it here is a bit on the nose. What of it.</p>
        </blockquote></div></div>
<a name="section0018"><h2>18. Leviticus</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>Helloooo, my friends!!</p><p>And just where the fuck have I been? Why, thank you for asking. The short answer is, Dealing With Some Shit. I posted a brief update to my Tumblr, so for those of you who left comments wondering when the next upload is coming, Tumblr is the place to look in the future! Thank you endlessly for your patience as we all continue to navigate life in these rather odd times.</p><p>But I’m back with the next chapter, and she’s a doozy, y’all. I’ve apparently tried to make up for my absence with the longest chapter to date. Trigger warnings for grief, loosely implied physical/emotional abuse on the part of a parent, power dynamics not explicitly negotiated, a little bit of humiliation kink, and the use of anti-queer slurs in a sexual context. If you’d prefer to skip the sex, stop reading after Lily leaves Remus’s, about 2/3 of the way through the chapter. If you do keep reading, yes, I am feeling some kind of way about Montero. </p><p>I continue to be super behind on replying to comments and Tumblr messages. Please don’t take that as me not caring about them. I’ve seen them, I’ve cherished them, I’ve responded to them inside the dumpster fire that is my head. One day (hopefully soon) that’ll translate into actual responses. Until then…welcome back!</p><p>Stay well &lt;3</p></blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Remus’s dad died on a Sunday, and he wouldn’t have put it past the man to do that on purpose.</p><p><em>How strange</em>, Remus thought first, before <em>how sad</em> or <em>he’s really gone</em> or <em>I hope mom’s okay</em>. How strange. He’d never much contemplated death up until that point, though his dad had been dying in one form or another for decades. Death was all around him growing up, it practically drifted from the magnolia trees along with the spring pollen. Another overdose or accident or maybe-not-accident-but-don’t-say-that-out-loud, another person gone. But it wasn’t strange, until that day. Gone. A person is here, and then they’re not. They’re a living thing – a family member, a friend, a shitty dad who tried his best, a shitty husband who never learned how to be better – and then they’re not. It’s no wonder people need God to explain it all. It’s no wonder his mama said “he’s with Jesus now” and not “his heart beat for fifty-two years and now it’ll never beat another day”.</p><p>“I’m coming home, mama,” Remus had quickly told her, sinking right back into his accent and forgetting all collegiate attempts to drop the elongated vowels and shortened consonants. “I’ll find a bus or som’in.”</p><p>“No you ain’t,” Hope responded, just as quickly. “You got classes tomorrow, baby. You stay right there and you learn.”</p><p>“I’m not leaving you alone, mama. I’m comin’ home.”</p><p>“Remus John Lupin,” Hope replied, in the tone reserved for stray dogs and Lyall when he was too drunk to stand straight. “You’ll do what I say. Ain’t no use for you down here.”</p><p>Remus could have argued, but it would have been useless. Hope was as stubborn as she was sweet, and if he was honest, the last thing Remus wanted to do was face his dad’s corpse and his mom’s grief. “What can I do, mama?” He asked, to say something.</p><p>“Can’t think of anything right off, baby,” She said.</p><p>“Mama,” Remus began, but stopped because he wasn’t sure he had more to say. He ran his tongue over the roof of his mouth and swallowed, trying to locate a lump in the back of his throat that wasn’t there, trying to feel the prickle of tears in his bone-dry eyes. “Which funeral home is handlin’ the body?” He asked, so he’d know where to send the money. Six months in saved up tips from bussing tables wasn’t much, but that was better. If he paid for too much of it, Hope would notice.</p><p>“The one down yonder by the feed store,” Hope replied. Remus listened as hard as he could, but he couldn’t tell if he could hear a lump in her throat, either.</p><p>“Okay,” He said. He knew the one. He’d stop by the Western Union first thing Monday morning. He’d email his professors that night, let them know he’d be missing class the second half of the week and then check the Greyhound schedule, find the bus that would get him closest, or maybe ask Lily if he could borrow her car – she’d let him, he was sure of it, but whether or not it could handle the steep incline up through the Cumberland Mountains or the hairpin turns off the frontage road was another matter – and then he’d have to call The Leaky, let them know he wouldn’t be able to work his shift on Thursday, and he promised Lily he’d help her practice for her graduate school interviews, so he’d have to let her know that–</p><p>“Remus?” Hope’s voice cut through his thoughts.</p><p>“I’m here, mama.”</p><p>He could practically hear Hope thinking through the shaky connection over his cell phone, could practically see her rubbing her neck the way she did when she wasn’t quite sure what to say. “Remus,” She decided, and then as if saying something very obvious, “Your daddy loved you.”</p><p>There wasn’t anything obvious about that, in Remus’s opinion. It may as well have been a flat out lie. But Hope didn’t say it because it was true, she said it because he was dead, and dead people somehow seem to love everyone more than they ever did alive.</p><p>“I know, mama,” Remus said, and didn’t know at all. “You’ll be okay? You won’t be alone today?”</p><p>“Baby, you know the church done brought more casseroles than I could eat in a year,” She replied, and Remus smiled. He wasn’t sure if Lyall truly did love him, but he was sure that Hope wouldn’t go hungry or lonely so long as the church ladies were involved. “The reverend brought by a whole poke of okra, can you imagine, baby? I’ll fry it all up for you and it’ll be gone in a hour.”</p><p>Fried okra and hairpin backroad turns and funeral homes without phone numbers and Hope. Home, or some approximation of it. Home, and no less so without Lyall, the first thought that made Remus feel anything at all. </p><p>He hung up with Hope and stayed exactly where he was when he first answered the phone, glued to the couch he told Lily he bought at a secondhand shop and actually picked up from someone’s front yard. <em>He’s with Jesus now</em>, Remus thought, trying it on like an ill-fitting suit. “He’s with Jesus now,” He said aloud, hoping to hem the pant legs a bit. It sort of worked. It sort of made him feel a little less stuck to the spot.</p><p>He stood, and thought about calling Lily and asking her to come home. But he didn’t really want her home, he didn’t really want to be around anyone at all. He didn’t want to have to explain “my dad died” but “it’s okay” and “no, it’s really okay” and then have people not believe him anyway. But he had to do <em>something</em>, he couldn’t waste away the day with reality TV and two full bags of chocolate-covered pretzels, as he’d planned to do with his Sunday afternoon. He briefly wondered if this is why people go home immediately after someone in their family dies – just for something to do. But he’d be more of a burden to Hope than he would be a help, what with her worrying about all the class he was missing, the living he wasn’t doing – that’s what Hope always said to anyone that asked, “my baby out there living” – so he wondered what else there is to do on a Sunday. He could go to a movie. But what movie do you see on the day your dad dies? And do you get popcorn? And do you feel guilty for having the appetite to enjoy it?</p><p>And then Remus had the strangest thought he’d ever had sober. <em>I’m going to church</em>, he heard something in the back of his mind say, as if entranced under some sort of curse that took over all his mental faculties. Church was not a choice he was familiar with the concept of making. Church was The Place You Go on Sunday Morning, in your polished loafers and pressed khakis and the plaid button-down Hope patched up three different times and still somehow looked brand new. Church wasn’t where you go when your daddy dies, not until the funeral at least, and even then only for the fried chicken and banana pudding. Forget that Remus didn’t know <em>where</em> to go to church – he was more familiar with the Mosque Lily attended than anything remotely resembling Christian, something he’d never tell Hope unless he wanted to kill her – Remus felt like he didn’t know <em>how</em> to go to church. He didn’t own khakis anymore. His loafers certainly weren’t polished. It was 10:45 in the morning and he had no way to get anywhere except to bike.</p><p><em>But daddy is dead</em>.</p><p>And? Remus asked back. And then a jumble of things.</p><p>
  <em>It’s just what you do when someone dies mama says mama would want you to daddy would hate it daddy would hate it daddy would hate it that’s reason enough it’s just what you do there’s something there for you and daddy would hate it...</em>
</p><p>So he got on his bike in jeans worn at the knees and the t-shirt he slept in and peddled towards campus, certain that there were churches he passed every day and never really noticed.</p><p>He locked his bike to the stand in front of the third church he passed and had no idea why he’d passed two churches before this one. This church didn’t have a bell in a white cage hanging from the hinges of the steeple, or a gaudy cross sticking straight up into the sky as if the symbol itself wasn’t one of death. He only knew this one was a church at all because of the awning, showcasing neat rearrangeable letters announcing the weekly events and WORSHIP EVERY SUNDAY AT 8:30 AND 11. ALL ARE WELCOME! Remus didn’t know if the sign meant it, but he walked through the front doors at 10:59 anyway and was greeted by a friendly usher who handed him a single-paged folded bulletin and said “welcome!” and seemed sincere enough. He sat in the very back row and read the bulletin cover to cover twice before the service started.</p><p>At first, Remus thought the pastor was just a congregant, just up there to give announcements and plug the latest charity drive and then hand over the pulpit. It wasn’t until she got up to preach – a good twenty minutes into the service – that Remus realized <em>she</em> <em>was</em> the pastor. He felt a little pang of guilt that it took him so long to realize – and vowed to never tell Lily – but back home, women didn’t get anywhere near the pulpit. Not even for announcements, not even to drum up interest for the latest charity drive. A woman might be a choir director, or she might be the First Lady, but she certainly was not permitted to <em>read</em> from the <em>Bible</em>, to <em>preach</em> on it no less, and Remus was so preoccupied with forcing his facial expression into something appearing neutral to notice the very first part of the verse. But then he heard the word “sacrifice”, and his brain tuned back in, back into <em>we know that word</em> and <em>we know this place</em> and he allowed himself to worry about his anti-feminist crisis later and just go ahead and listen.</p><p>“<em>Any Israelite or any foreigner residing in Israel who sacrifices any of his children to Molek is to be put to death</em>,” The pastor continued. She had a good voice. Melodic and sincere and a little bit stern. Remus knew Leviticus when he heard it. Twenty-seven chapters of condemnations and instructions. But Remus didn’t know Leviticus like this. And as she continued, he didn’t even have to force himself. He was listening.</p><p>“<em>Anyone who curses their father or mother is to be put to death</em>.” Remus snorted. It can’t have been silent, and yet no one looked.</p><p><em>You sure spent enough time cursing me, dad</em>, Remus said aloud in his head. Not thought. Said. He heard it, in his own two ears, plain as if it’d come from the parishioner sitting next to him. <em>Guess Jesus wasn’t lying after all</em>.</p><p>But Jesus wasn’t in Leviticus. That’s what Remus found out that day, that’s what Remus didn’t know. That there was a time when Jesus didn’t exist. And he supposed he knew that much, intellectually – what do you celebrate on Christmas if not Jesus being born into the world? – but back home, there’s no church without Jesus. There’s no God without Jesus. No morality, no rules. And speaking of, Jesus is a man, and so, so too is the preacher. And speaking of, the Jews were our misguided brothers, with their kitschy candleholders and their silly little hats and no knowledge of the real God. And speaking of, Jesus didn’t fuck, Jesus wasn’t ever married so Jesus didn’t fuck, but Jesus most <em>certainly</em> didn’t fuck a man, certainly not his Father, who stripped him naked on a cross and who brought Jesus up to heaven to sit right next to him.</p><p>“So what does it mean to be instructed to stone a child who curses their parents?” The lady asked…the <em>pastor</em> asked.</p><p>Remus knew this routine. She’d answer her own question, but only sort of. Only in the unsatisfactory way with which Pastor Brown answered Remus when Remus asked if his dog went to heaven after the four-wheeler struck him dead. “The Lord provides,” Pastor Brown said, and “God is good”, and Remus <em>knew</em> both those things, but was his dog in heaven? Would Remus see him when he got there? Would his dog remember him, so many years later?</p><p>So Remus prepared to leave, quietly, out the back. Whatever brought him there it wasn’t God, it was grief, a thing far more real and far more powerful. Except that the lady pastor…the pastor…she <em>did</em> answer the question. Out right. “I think it’s a way of keeping our children obedient to us,” She said. Remus sat down again in his seat. “Did God mean for our children to never question us?”</p><p>Remus hoped she’d answer that question, too. Remus always obeyed his daddy - even those times when he wished he hadn’t - and his daddy had gone and stoned him anyway. Beat him round the potting shed. Let his friends call Remus “faggot”. Died.</p><p>Remus would find out later that the only inheritance Lyall had left either one of them was a huge gambling debt and a rumor that he fathered more than one child that wasn’t Hope’s. By then, Remus would wish he <em>had</em> disobeyed his father, that his father had tried to stone him only for Remus to turn around and say, “Go ahead. Your God isn’t here for this part anyway.” But what comforted him that day was the realization that there had been a time without Jesus. And in this time without Jesus, there were still texts from God, telling parents to stone their children and men not to lie down with other men.</p><p>That day, Remus realized that Hope might have been wrong about some things. He realized he wasn’t sad that his dad was dead, because it was all eclipsed by the anger. He realized he’d go home to Hope that afternoon after all, and when she chastised him for disobeying her, he’d say “some rules have more stick than others” and leave it at that. And he’d never know if God meant for men to lie down with men, but he could forgive God for that, because there were plenty of things God meant men not to do that they go on and do anyway.</p><p>That day, he wasn’t transformed. He didn’t walk out of the church a changed person, a person awakened to a slumbering capital-t Truth. If he did eventually forgive Lyall – and whether he did or not changed right along with the seasons – it wasn’t because the woman he came to know as Pastor Minerva suggested that maybe parents earned disobedience all on their own. But when the service ended, he lingered by the punch bowl, pretended to take a keen interest in the bulletin board until the line out of the sanctuary dwindled. And then he walked up to Minerva, and shook her hand, and felt a lump in his throat form when he said, “My daddy died today”.   </p><p> </p><p>-*-</p><p> </p><p>Lily’s getting more anxious the closer the wedding gets, and Remus does not point it out. Each time he sees her, her outfit is a little less color-coordinated or the purple bags under her eyes are a little deeper, and Remus <em>certainly</em> does not point it out. He thinks he knows what’s wrong. He thinks maybe it’s the same thing that’s started to tug at the back of his own mind, but he says nothing until one night twenty-two days into Lent, when Lily is curled in on herself atop his couch with a mug of hot chocolate in one hand and her other flipping idly through her overflowing, loose-leaf wedding binder.</p><p>She sighs. “Remus?” She says. He looks up from his book and knows by the look on her face that he won’t be returning to it tonight.</p><p>“What’s up, Lily?” He replies, closing the novel and discarding it on the coffee table.</p><p>“Do you ever worry that they’re right?”</p><p>Remus blinks at her for a few moments. He doesn’t know who “they” are, or what they might be right about. Then Lily closes her binder, and discards it next to Remus’s book, and rests her head on the top of the couch.</p><p>“I just…just go with me here, okay?” She says. Remus nods. “Do you ever worry that you <em>are</em> doing something wrong?”</p><p><em>Yes</em>, Remus wants to say immediately. That’s the thing that’s begun to gnaw at the base of his conscience, the reason he hasn’t spoken to Sirius in a few days. “I…”</p><p>“I think maybe I’m going to hell.”</p><p>Remus actually leans back a little at that, his face breaking into an involuntary, ironic smile. And then he realizes – with something a bit akin to horror – that Lily isn’t joking.</p><p>“Lily…” Is all Remus can bring himself to say. Of all the things he’s heard come out of Lily’s mouth – of all the things he could <em>predict</em> might come out of Lily’s mouth – this is by far the thing he feels least equipped to deal with, including the time she told him that she sometimes masturbates on her prayer rug. “What are you talking about?”</p><p>Lily sighs, rubbing her eyes for a moment before dropping her hands defeatedly into her lap. “I don’t know, Remus. Lately it just feels like everything I do is haram.”</p><p>“Lily,” Remus starts, and then changes course. He won’t act surprised or tell her she’s gone crazy. He’ll do what she would do, and try to listen. “Because of the wedding?”</p><p>“Not just that--although that doesn’t help. My parents are threatening to not even <em>come</em> to the wedding now, did I tell you?”</p><p>Remus shakes his head. She hadn’t told him, but he couldn’t say he was necessarily surprised. “They’ll come around,” He lies.</p><p>“No they won’t. <em>James’s</em> parents came around. Mine are—well…”</p><p>Remus nods for her to continue.</p><p>“It’s just, they’re not wrong, are they? They’re not <em>technically</em> wrong, me marrying outside the faith it’s—well it’s okay for a man to do, not a woman, and I <em>know</em> that – I knew that – and yet…”</p><p>Remus knows this is only the tip of the iceberg. Lily marrying a non-Muslim. Lily marrying a non-believer at all. Lily marrying a man who is a non-believer after a lifetime of participation in the LDS church. Lily marrying a man who is a non-believer after a lifetime of participation in the LDS church, and he’s <em>white</em>, and he’s <em>loud</em>, and he loves their daughter perhaps a bit <em>too</em> much, and they live together (Lily’s parents don’t know that last part yet).</p><p>“But you—Lily, you’ve never cared about that before,” Remus replies. Lily winces a little, as if maybe she has, actually, cared a great deal. Remus tries again, this time reaching a long arm over the top of the couch to place what he hopes is a reassuring hand atop Lily’s shoulder. “Lily, you’re a good person. James is a good person.”</p><p>She brushes him off with a wave of her hand. “I know that, Remus,” She says. “But I don’t know if I’m a good Muslim.”</p><p>And herein lies the enigma of Lily. She won’t allow anyone to see her without her Hijab, won’t touch alcohol with a ten-foot pole, won’t get anywhere near James’s erect penis until they’re married - but she’ll live with him. She’ll practically surf atop the rift she’s created in her family by marrying him. She’ll read books and articles and internet blogs and even make her way onto some rather questionable porn sites to give Remus tips on how to be fisted for the first time. Remus has never quite known where Lily draws those lines in her head, but he always assumed that at least <em>she</em> knew.</p><p>“I did,” She says, when he voices that last thought aloud. “I do. But it’s hard when there’s…when it’s this real. When I could lose my family, Remus. Then I wonder if I haven’t drawn the lines quite right.”</p><p>“We all feel that way sometimes,” Remus replies. He means it. <em>He</em> certainly feels that way sometimes, and most of the people he’s talked to in his congregation, and James, and Lily too, apparently. The only person who seems not to really struggle with it is…Sirius. Sirius doesn’t. Sirius somehow seems to always know that he’s doing something discrete, but not wrong. Sirius never seems to feel like the very odd, squiggly lines he draws for himself are anything other than etched in, like they’ve always been there and he simply stays on the right side of them. He’s the one breaking the biggest rule, arguably, committing the greatest offense – so then why has Remus never had this conversation with <em>him</em>?</p><p>“I guess,” Lily replies after a long pause. Then she shakes her head, as if trying to throw off an annoying insect, and puts on a smile that doesn’t even try to appear more than fake. “It’s probably just the stress getting to me, with everything piling up.”</p><p>“Yeah,” Remus lies again. “Probably that’s it.”</p><p>“I should get home,” She says, gathering the errant catalog cutouts of white dresses and white cakes and sample wedding invitations. “I’ll call you tomorrow, ‘k?”</p><p>Remus sees her to the door, and then sits back down on his sofa feeling a good ten pounds heavier than before. He knows the unease of Lily’s telling, knows all about this particularly insidious beast that rears its head inside of you. Not the kind that comes from the outside, the kind that can be brushed off as judgement or overzealousness or a misinterpretation of the rules, but the kind that’ll start to gnaw its way through your diaphragm if you let it. The kind that’ll work its way right into your brain, sit right on the edge and say “tell me you can prove that they’re wrong”, that says “tell me, again, why you’re right,” that says “is it worth it, then? To risk everything. Is it worth it?”</p><p>That voice in Remus’s head always sounds a little too much like his daddy. So he asks Sirius to come over – as if that tracks – and awaits his arrival in the exact same spot on the couch.</p><p>When Sirius arrives, Remus watches through the curtains as he saunters right up to Remus’s door, knocks a cool three times and waits with his hands in his pockets. As if he has every right in the world to be there. As if he fears neither God nor hell nor errant sprinkler.</p><p>When Remus finally gets up to open the door for him, he finds Sirius leaning against the jamb, a goddamn rockabilly idol in his leather jacket and just-visible arm tattoos, one boot crossed over the other as if that’s a fucking comfortable way to stand.</p><p>Remus says nothing, just dropping his jaw like a dumb fish, and Sirius pecks him on the lips and invites himself in. He picks up the throw pillow Lily was resting her elbow on not an hour prior and plops right down into her spot, and it <em>doesn’t</em> track, but Remus is suddenly so angry that he almost <em>shouts</em>, “What gives you the right?!”</p><p>Sirius freezes midway to reaching for the water glass on the coffee table and looks up at Remus through eyelashes that <em>have</em> to be curled, for fuck’s sake. “Excuse me?” He asks.</p><p>Remus takes a single deep breath. It does fuck all for his anger, which rather appreciates the oxygen as a way to stoke its flames. “Why are <em>you</em> so fucking fine with all of this, huh?” Remus hears himself say, and then – because it would appear he cannot stop himself – follows it up with “Why are you so fucking sure you aren’t damned to hell with the rest of us?”</p><p>It’s maybe a flit of amusement that flickers across Sirius’s face at first, but he has the courtesy to reign it in. Instead, he readjusts himself on the couch, crossing one leg over the other and putting both his arms up on the back of the couch. Taking up space. Fucking <em>belonging</em> there.</p><p>“I don’t believe in hell,” He says smoothly, with a little shrug. As if it’s that simple. For Sirius, it <em>might</em> be that simple, and that only fans the flames even further.</p><p>“Well what the fuck <em>do</em> you believe in then – huh, Sirius? What the fuck rules <em>do</em> you follow?”</p><p>“Did you ask me over just to yell at me?” Sirius replies, voice barely tinged with any emotion at all.</p><p>“No!” Remus replies immediately, and then, “yes. Maybe. I don’t know why I asked you over.”</p><p>“Because you like me,” Sirius replies, with a little wiggle of his eyebrow. If Sirius thinks that’ll draw Remus right out of whatever pious, childish mood he’s found himself in, then...well, it nearly does.</p><p>“More like because I hate <em>myself</em>, I’d guess,” Remus replies bitterly.</p><p>It’s a rise he’s hoping to get out of Sirius, apparently. But that’s not what he gets. Instead, Sirius stands up, paces towards Remus and narrows his eyes into slits, the pupils landing right on Remus’s own eyes, where they see <em>into</em> him. Sirius licks his lips, and says, “Is that why you asked me to come over tonight, Remus? Do you want to be punished?” Remus hears himself swallow and hopes Sirius didn’t. Sirius’s voice is low, butter-smooth and unwavering. He brings his palm to the back of Remus’s head, where he tugs ever so slightly on the hair there. “Do you want me to punish you?”</p><p><em>No!</em> Remus hears himself try to say. And then the other voice – the Lyall voice – drowns it out. “Yes,” He replies.</p><p>Sirius grins devilishly. “Good,” Sirius says, “You deserve to be punished.” He pulls at Remus’s hair a little harder, so Remus has to jerk his head back a bit. “And just what is it that you need to be punished for tonight, baby?”</p><p>Remus melts a little but doesn’t reply, biting his lip defiantly and hoping that Sirius will take the invitation for what it is.</p><p>“You want me to guess, then,” Sirius says, scratching his nails against Remus’s scalp.</p><p>Remus nods.</p><p>Sirius steps back half a pace, just enough to eye Remus from head to toe, as if scanning him for visible signs of transgression.</p><p>“Is it because you’ve decided to throw a little temper tantrum?” Sirius asks, almost playfully. “Do I need to put you over my knee and spank you?”</p><p>Remus shakes his head. Sirius leans into him, not quite close enough to touch lips.</p><p>“Is it because you’re such a slut, baby?” Sirius tries again. “Do you need me to fill up all your holes? Is that it?”</p><p>Remus’s cock jumps, but no. No, that’s not it. He shakes his head again. Sirius draws back, presses his lips together as if contemplating something very seriously, and then a little spark of recognition seems to flare behind his eyes.</p><p>“It’s because you’re dirty,” Sirius says. It’s not a question this time. “You need me to punish you for being so dirty and wrong and shameful, is that it, Remus?”</p><p>Remus feels a lump begin to form in his throat, but he nods anyway.</p><p>Sirius considers him for a long moment, darting his eyes back and forth between both of Remus’s. He appears to make some sort of choice, because he shrugs out of his jacket and lets it fall to the floor behind him, uncuffs the sleeves of his plain blue button down only to roll them up higher, just above his elbows, so the sharp, black lines of the tattoos there appear to pop right up out of his skin. Remus’s heart begins to beat faster, adrenaline rushing into his head and clouding every remaining thought of <em>maybe this isn’t a good idea</em>.</p><p>“Do you know where dirty boys belong?” Sirius asks.</p><p>Remus could guess, but he doesn’t. He stands pin-straight and waits for Sirius to tell him.</p><p>“On their knees would be the obvious answer, wouldn’t it?” Sirius continues. “Down there on the floor, begging for a cock in your dirty mouth – that makes sense, right?”</p><p>Remus finds himself beginning to bend his knees, the floor suddenly sounding terribly appealing. Sirius stops him with a hand on his shoulder.</p><p>“Uh-uh,” He tuts, and Remus stands back up to full height. “That would be too easy – to let you suck my cock. No, I don’t think so.” Sirius thinks for a moment, and then says, “Come with me.”</p><p>Remus follows him to the bedroom, where he assumes he’ll be instructed to lay on the hastily made bed. But instead, Sirius maneuvers him to the far corner of the room, right in front of his closet doors, which, when closed, reveal…</p><p>“That’s right,” Sirius says as a look of uncomfortable recognition blooms across Remus’s face. “I think you should have to <em>see</em> how dirty you are. I think you should <em>look</em> at yourself while I tell you just how bad and wrong and <em>shameful</em> you’ve been.”</p><p>Remus feels the beginnings of panic rise in his throat, at the same time as his cock jerks and hardens and begins to strain against his pants.</p><p>“Strip down for me,” Sirius instructs, and Remus is just on this side of having any idea why he wants this, but he does, stepping hastily out of his pants and underwear and slipping his shirt off over his head. All the while he looks at Sirius, who nods approvingly and throws him a few impish grins.</p><p>Remus peels off his socks and is naked sooner than he expected. The lights from other parts of the house are the only things that brighten the bedroom, but it’s enough to create a slightly gray-cast illumination of every speckle on Remus’s body. He stands and lets Sirius look at him, not minding much, and then Sirius jerks his head towards the mirror and says “go on, then” and Remus finds himself not wanting to turn.</p><p>“This is what you wanted, right?” Sirius asks, stepping close enough towards Remus that he could touch him but doesn’t. “To be reminded of how dirty you are? So look. Look at yourself. Watch yourself as I punish you.”</p><p>Remus has never done this before, never having found his own reflection particularly arousing or appealing. But he <em>does </em>want it, and so he turns towards the mirror, shutting his eyes until he feels a small brush of Sirius’s hand on his back. He opens them, catches his own gaze in the mirror and feels…awful. Ashamed. Dirty and bad and wrong, and all of those feelings go right to his cock, which fills with blood right before his own eyes. He goes to reach for it, to cover himself or pleasure himself or just for something to do, he’s not sure, but Sirius grabs his hand before he can.</p><p>“No,” Sirius says. “Dirty boys don’t get to touch their cocks.”</p><p>Remus moans involuntarily, and he has no idea if it’s pained or not. He looks at his chest, from one brown nipple to the other, and idly wonders if anyone would ever bother to count the moles in between. He slides his gaze over his hips, which are held now on either side by Sirius’s hands. He looks at his cock, the head pointing right towards the mirror and glistening at the tip, his balls retreating into his body, further and further away from whatever it is they’re doing. He scans his legs, his feet, back up to his hair, which is a little messier than usual from the humidity in the post-thunderstorm air, and then over to the reflection of Sirius’s eyes, which meet him.</p><p>“So tell me,” Sirius says, resting his chin atop Remus’s shoulder. “Just which parts of you are so very <em>dirty</em>?”</p><p>If Sirius is playing the long game here towards some quasi-new age encouragement of self love, Remus isn’t interested. But that’s not how he seems, quite. That’s not what Remus needs, and maybe Sirius can <em>know</em> that, somehow.</p><p>“Is it your cock?" Sirius asks. "Do you like having it sucked by other men? Like putting it inside men’s assholes and fucking them there? Or maybe-“ and he dips two fingers into the crevice of Remus’s ass, “-maybe you like it when someone puts their fingers here? Maybe you like it when someone gets you ready to take a hard cock up inside you, is that it?” Remus nods and moans and Sirius rubs around the pucker of Remus’s asshole, applying just enough pressure for Remus to know he’s there. “Did you like it when I put my tongue here the night we met? Do you like when a man licks up into you? Does that make you <em>dirty</em>, Remus?”</p><p>Remus is panting, pushing himself back on Sirius’s finger.</p><p>“Does it?” Sirius asks again.</p><p>“Yes,” Remus says breathlessly, the word catching in his throat.</p><p>“Do you like how <em>wrong</em> it feels, Remus?” Sirius asks, and punctuates the question with a sharp bite to Remus’s shoulder.</p><p>“<em>Yes</em>--yes,” Remus replies.</p><p>“So you like being dirty then,” Sirius says. “You like knowing you’re so <em>sinful</em>.”</p><p>Remus’s heart jumps at the last word. Is that what it is? Is that what he feels? Is that why he’s rubbing his cock against nothing but air, and still feels only a moment away from coming?</p><p>“Yes, Sirius—<em>fuck</em>, yes.”</p><p>Sirius thumbs over the head of Remus’s cock and brings the finger toying with Remus’s asshole to his mouth. He licks around it, and then returns it to Remus’s hole, where this time he does broach Remus’s body, just a little.</p><p>“Look at how needy you are for just a <em>finger</em>,” Sirius says to him, meeting Remus’s eyes in the mirror again. “Look how wet you are – how hard you are for me. Look at how much you like being such a dirty little queer.”</p><p>Remus shuts his eyes and gasps, reaching behind him for something to grab to keep him upright. He settles for a hand on Sirius’s ass, which serves the dual purpose of steadying him and bringing Sirius’s body flesh against Remus’s back. “More,” He says, not opening his eyes again until he has.</p><p>“You want more?” Sirius asks. “You want more of my finger inside you? Or more of my hand around your cock?”</p><p><em>Yes</em>, Remus says, maybe just in his head, <em>all of it</em>. He thinks he feels Sirius enter him a little more, he watches as Sirius makes a fist around the head of Remus’s cock and starts to move it up and down.</p><p>“Or do you want me to tell you what a dirty queer you are, hm?”</p><p>“<em>Yes</em>!” Remus nearly shouts, before he can catch up to it. <em>No!</em> a dueling voice chimes in. But he watches, mesmerized, as Sirius’s hand circles around his cock, listens carefully to the little groan he hears Sirius make as he pushes his finger inside Remus as far as it can go. He remembers Leviticus. He remembers rules. He remembers that sometimes it is a comfort to be told exactly what’s what. He remembers how some rules have more stick than others, how some rules must just be there to be broken, to remind us that we can.</p><p>“You <em>like</em> being a dirty queer,” Sirius continues, into Remus’s shoulder. He moves his finger up and over Remus’s prostate, squeezes harder around Remus’s cock. “And you’re so <em>good</em> at it, aren’t you Remus? At being so very <em>wrong</em>? You just love being such a dirty little faggot–”</p><p>And that’s when Remus comes, spilling into Sirius’s hand and clenching around Sirius’s finger, letting his head fall back on Sirius’s shoulder and hearing the ring of that last word sound over and over and over again in his head, hearing it mix with the high-pitched ringing of the little convulsions of his hips, the winding-unwinding of his balls pulling in and up and then out again.</p><p>He loses balance or strength or both and crumples to his knees, where Sirius’s joins him, catching him around the middle and pressing his lips to the juncture of Remus’s neck and shoulder.</p><p><em>How strange,</em> Remus thinks before he loses himself completely to the moment. <em>Guess I wound up on my knees after all</em>.</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p><strong>First Lady</strong>: A term for the wife of the pastor of a church, mostly used in more fundamentalist or traditional church settings.</p><p><strong>Leviticus</strong>: The third book of the Torah and Bible. Leviticus has a lot of rules on conduct, attire, relationships, etc., but don't fall into the trap of thinking it can be ignored in favor of the more lyrical books of the New Testament. That's called supersessionism, and it's anti-Jewish and bad. A good preacher/Rabbi will preach on Leviticus in a way that brings out a lot more of the poetry and complexity of it. I'm not one of those preachers - find a Rabbi, they do it best. </p><p>And a quick note on the Appalachian accent with which Hope and Remus speak at the beginning of the chapter: I don't hail from Appalachia directly. I am not the authority on this accent. I know it pretty well, but I take responsibility for any mistakes that may have been made.</p>
        </blockquote><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>Tumblr is <a href="https://bubbebruja.tumblr.com">here</a>.</p></blockquote></div></div>
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